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THE EARLY POEMS 



OF 




WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



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NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. 



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14TH Street. ^ 



NEW YORK: 46 East 14TH 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY. 
BOSTON: 100 Purchase Street. 



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Copyright, 1893, 
By T. Y. Crowell & Co. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



OF 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 



William Cullen Bryant was born November 3, 1794, 
at Cummington, Hampshire County, in Western Massa- 
chusetts. 

Like Longfellow, he was descended from Captain John 
Alden and Priscilla Mullins. He had a threefold claim 
to inheritance from the pilgrims of the " Mayflower.*' 

On both sides he came from an active and long-lived 
race. His great-grandfather, Dr. Ichabod Bryant, was 
a man of " gigantic size and strength." His grandfather. 
Dr. Philip Byrant, lived to be eighty-five and visited his 
patients till a fortnight before he died. His father was 
so muscular that he could lift a barrel of cider into the 
cart over the wheel. His maternal grandmother, at the 
age of sixty-seven, was able, unaided, to mount a horse 
from the ground. 

His father, Dr. Peter Bryant, might in happier cir- 
cumstances have been illustrious. Left at the age of 
eight to the charge of an avaricious uncle, his early edu- 
cation was wholly neglected. In spite of every dis- 
couragement he fitted himself for Harvard, but was not 



IV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

allowed to proceed with the course. His knowledge of 
medicine was entirely acquired at home, except for a 
year's instruction under Dr. Prilete, a celebrated French 
surgeon, and a course of lectures at Cambridge. At 
the age of twenty-five his property consisted of a horse, 
a few books, and twenty-five dollars' worth of medicines. 
With that capital he established himself at Cummington. 
His knowledge of men, but not his means, was increased 
by a voyage to the East Indies as surgeon to a merchant 
vessel. The vessel was confiscated at Mauritius, where 
Dr. Bryant was obliged to remain more than a year, 
thus acquiring a knowledge of French and, it is surmised, 
a more liberal theology than the rigid Calvinism in which 
he had been brought up. 

The books, curiosities, surgical instruments, and bo- 
tanical specimens which he had collected during his 
absence, were all lost, together with his luggage, toward 
the end of his voyage home from the Cape of Good Hope. 
He landed " truly and literally poor." 

Nevertheless from 1806 till 18 13 he represented his 
county in the General Court, and was afterward State 
Senator for two years. 

Byrant says ip his autobiography : — 

"My father delighted in poetry, and in his library 
were the works of most of the eminent English poets. 
He wrote verses himself, mostly humorous and satirical. 
He was not unskilled in Latin poetry, in which the odes 
of Horace were his favorites. He was fond of music, 
played on the violin, and I remember hearing him say 
that he once made a bass viol — for he was very in- 
genious in the use of tools — and played upon it. 

" He was of a mild and indulgent temper, somewhat 
silent — though not hesitating in conversation, and never 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. V 

expatiated at much length on any subject. His patients 
generally paid him whatever they pleased, if ever so little, 
so that he could not by any means be called a thriving 
man. In one respect he did not stint himself: he always 
dressed well. . . . He had a certain metropolitan air." 

Four of Dr. Bryant's sisters also wrote verses, but if 
William Cullen inherited his genius from his father's 
family, he had no ear for music. 

Dr. Bryant married Sarah Snell, who, like himself, had 
been born at North Bridgewater. With little chance 
for education, she nevertheless made the most of her 
opportunities, and became a power for good in her neigh- 
borhood. She was indefatigable in her household duties, 
tending carefully to the necessary economies of a poor 
doctor's family, spinning and weaving, making her chil- 
dren's clothes, teaching them to read and write, and doing 
all the manifold work of the mother of a large family. 
If her neighbors needed her help, she gave it, often nurs- 
ing the sick for days at a time. She took a deep interest 
in public affairs, and was influential in improving schools 
and roads, and the planting of trees. One of her favorite 
mottoes was, "Never be idle," and she carried it out to 
the letter. 

Dr. Bryant's library contained upwards of seven hun- 
dred volumes, and included Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, 
Pope, Burns, Cowper, Scott, Southey, and Wordsworth. 
All the family were great readers, and winter evenings 
the boys used to lie on their backs on the floor, making 
the most of the flickering light of the birch logs in the fire- 
place. 

William Cullen knew the alphabet by the time he was 
sixteen months old, and before he was four he was sent to 
the district school. When he was five he used to stand on 



VI BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

a settle and declaim Watts's hymns. At eight he began 
to write verses. 

At this time Dr. Bryant and his family, after several 
moves, had been living for about three years at the home- 
stead of his father-in-law, Ebenezer Snell, a Justice of the 
Peace, and a man of great character and wit. He set his 
young grandson at versifying passages of Scripture. Several 
specimens are preserved, but the earlier ones show more 
immaturity than his original effusions. Thus he began the 
first chapter of Job : — 

" His name was Job, evil did he eschew. 

To him were born seven sons : three daughters, too. " 

His father criticised it and he began again : — 

" Job, just and good, in Uz had sojourned long; 

He feared his God, and shunned the way of wrong. 
Three were his daughters, and his sons were seven, 
And large the wealth bestowed on him by heaven. 
Seven thousand sheep were in his pastures fed, 
Three thousand camels by his train were led; 
For him the yoke a thousand oxen wore. 
Five hundred she-asses his burdens bore. 
His household to a mighty host increased, 
The greatest man was Job in all the East." 

About the same time he celebrated the June eclipse of 
the Sun (1806) in heroic verse. It began: — 

" How awfully sublime and grand to see 
The lamp of Day wrap'ed in Obscurity ! 
To see the sun remove behind the moon. 
And nightly darkness shroud the day at noon ! 
The birds no longer feel his genial ray. 
But cease to sing and sit upon the spray. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Vll 

A solemn gloom and stillness spreads around, 
Reigns in the air and broods o'er all the ground. 
Once smiling Nature wears another face; 
The blooming meadow loses half its grace; 
All things are silent save the chilling breeze 
That in low whispers rustles through the trees. 
The stars break forth and stud the azure sky, 
And larger planets meet the wondering eye." 

He also delivered an original address for a school ex- 
amination; and this effusion, which dealt in heroic coup- 
lets with the progress of knowledge, was afterwards 
printed in the Salevi Gazette. His father said, "He will 
be ashamed of his verses when he is grown up." That 
was a correct prediction. Nevertheless, Dr. Bryant, the 
following year took with him to Boston a metrical invec- 
tion by his son, and had it printed in a pamphlet entitled 
"The Embargo; or. Sketches of the Times; a Satire by a 
Youth of Thirteen." It contained the following passages, 
which, of course, show the influence of Pope and 
Dryden : — 

JEFFERSON. 

"And thou, the scorn of every patriot name, 
Thy country's ruin and thy council's shame, 
Poor servile thing ! derision of the brave 
Who erst from Tarleton fled to Carter's cave; 
Thou who when menac'd by perfidious Gaul 
Didst prostrate to her whisker'd minion fall; 
And when our cash her empty bags supply'd 
Didst meanly strive the foul disgrace to hide; 
Go, wretch, resign the presidential chair, 

■ Disclose thy secret measures, foul or fair. 



Vlli BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Go, search with curious eye for horned frogs, 

'Mid the wild wastes of Louisianian bogs, 

Or, where Ohio rolls his turbid stream, 

Dig for huge bones, thy glory and thy theme. 

Go, scan, Philosophist, thy Sally's charms, 

And sink supinely in her sable arms, 

But quit to abler hands the helm of state." 

VICE. 

*' Look where we will, and in whatever land, 
Europe's rich soil, or Afric's barren sand. 
Where the wild savage hunts his wilder prey, 
Or art or science pour their brightest day, 
The monster Vice appears before our eyes 
In naked impudence or gay disguise. 

But quit the meaner game, indignant Muse, 
And to thy country turn thy nobler views; 
Ill-fated clime ! condemn'd to feel th' extremes 
Of a weak ruler's philosophic dreams; 
Driven headlong on to ruin's fateful brink, 
When will thy country feel? when will she think? 

Satiric Muse, shall injured Commerce weep 
Her ravish'd nights, and will thy thunders sleep? 
Dart thy keen glances, knit thy threatening brows. 
Call fire from heaven to blast thy country's foes. 
Oh ! let a youth thine inspiration learn ! 
Oh ! give him words that breathe and thoughts that 
burn ! 

Curse of our nation, source of countless woes. 
From whose dark womb unreckon'd misery flows. 
The Embargo rages, like a sweeping wind; 
Fear lowers before, and Famine stalks behind." 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. ix 

THE faction's DEMAGOGUE. 

*' E'en while I sing, see Faction urge her claim, 
Mislead with falsehood, and with zeal inflame; 
Lift her black banner, spread her empire wide. 
And stalk triumphant with a fury's stride. 
She blows her brazen trump, and at the sound 
A motley throng, obedient, flock around; 
A mist of changing hues o'er all she flings, 
And darkness perches on her dragon wings. 
As Johnson deep, as Addison refin'd. 
And skill'd to pour conviction o'er the mind. 
Oh, might some patriot rise, the gloom dispel, 
Chase Error's mist, and break her magic spell ! 

But vain the wish', for hark ! the murmuring meed 
Of hoarse applause from yonder shed proceed; 
Enter and view the gaping concourse there, 
Intent with gaping mouth and stupid stare, 
While in the midst their supple leader stands, 
Harangues aloud, and flourishes his hands; 
To adulation tunes his servile throat. 
And sues, successful, for each blockhead's vote." 

The satire met with a rapid sale among the Federalists, 
who at that time delighted in any sort of scurrility. A 
second edition was soon issued, corrected, and enlarged, 
and accompanied by a number of other poems, the longest 
of which — one hundred and thirty-five lines — was enti- 
tled "The Spanish Revolution." 

Some doubt having been expressed whether a youth of 
thirteen could have written the " Embargo," the new edi- 
tion contained an " advertisement," certifying the fact 
from "personal knowledge of himself and his family, as 



X BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

well as of his literary improvement and extraordinary tal- 
ents." It contained also a preface, in which the author 
declares that he "is far from thinking that all his errors 
are expunged, or all his faults corrected," adding, "In- 
deed, were that the case, he is suspicious that the ' com- 
position ' would cease to be his own." 

The first example of Bryant's blank verse is interesting. 
It is a version of David's lament over Saul and Jonathan, 
and was also written at his grandfather Snell's instiga- 
tion : — 

"The beautiful of Israel's land lie slain 
On the high places. How the mighty ones 
Are fallen ! Tell it not in Gath, nor sound 
The tidings in the streets of Ascalon, 
Lest there the daughters of the Philistines 
Rejoice; lest there the heathen maidens sing 
The song of triumph. Oh, ye mountain slopes, 
Ye Heights of Gilboa, let there be no rain 
Nor dew upon you; let no offerings smoke 
Upon your fields, for there the strong man's shield. 
The shield of Saul, was vilely cast away. 
As tho' he ne'er had been anointed king. 
From bloody fray, from conflict to the death, 
With men of might the bow of Jonathan 
Turned never back, nor did the sword of Saul 
Return without the spoils of victory. 
Joined in their loves and pleasant in their lives 
Were Saul and Jonathan; nor in their deaths 
Divided. Swifter were they in pursuit 
Than eagles, and of more than lion strength. 
Weep, Israel's daughters, over Saul who robed 
Your limbs in scarlet, adding ornaments 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xi 

That ye delight in, ornaments of gold ! 

How are the mighty fallen in the heat 

Of battle ! Oh, my brother Jonathan, 

Slain on the heights, my heart is wrung for thee ! 

My brother, very pleasant hast thou been 

To me; thy love for me was wonderful, 

Passing the love of women. How are fallen 

The mighty! and their weapons lie in dust." 

It was decided, in view of such talent, that the boy 
should go to college, and he was sent to his uncle, the 
Rev. Thomas Snell, at North Brookfield, for the prepara- 
tory course in Latin. Here, at his father's desire, he 
occupied himself with rendering into English verse pas- 
sages from the ^neid. The following description of the 
storm from Book I., though Bryant wrote his father that 
he would doubtless find in it much that needed emenda- 
tion, and much that characterized the crude efforts of 
puerility, is not a discreditable effort for a lad in his 
fifteenth year: — 

" ^olus spake, and with a godlike might 

Impelled his spear against the mountain's height. 
Straight the freed winds forsake their rocky cell, 
And o'er the earth in furious whirlwinds swell. 
The South-west, laden with its tempests dire. 
Fierce Eurus and the raging South conspire; 
Disclose the ocean's depths with dreadful roar 
And roll vast surges thundering to the shore. 
The cordage breaks, the seamen raise their cries, 
Clouds veil the smiling day and cheerful skies; 
Blue lightnings glare, redoubled thunder rolls. 
And frowning darkness shrouds the dreary poles ! 



XU BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

While instant ruin threatening every eye, 
Hangs on the waves, or lowers from the sky ! 

A mighty wave descending from on high, 
Death on its brow — before the hero's eye, 
Fell on the ships which bore the Lycian crew 
And headlong from his seat the pilot threw. 
Thrice the swift vortex whirled the vessel round. 
And straight ingulphed it in the deep profound ! 
Then o'er the waves, in thick confusion spread, 
Rose arms, and planks, and bodies of the dead." 

During this absence he wrote a poetic letter to his 
brother Austin. It contained one hundred and eighty 
lines, of which the following have been preserved : — 

" Once more the bard, with eager eye, reviews 
The flowery path of Fancy, and the Muse 
Once more essays to trill forgotten strains, 
The loud amusement of his native plains. 
Late you beheld me treading labor's round 
To guide slow oxen o'er the furrowed ground; 
The sturdy hoe or slender rake to ply 
Midst dust and sweat, beneath a summer sky. 
But now I pore o'er Virgil's glowing lines, 
Where, famed in war, the great ^neas shines; 
Where novel scenes around me seem to stand, 
Lo ! grim Alecto whirls the flaming brand. 
Dire jarring tumult, death and battle rage. 
Fierce armies close, and daring chiefs engage; 
Mars thunders furious from his flying car, 
And hoarse-toned clarions stir the raging war. 
Nor with less splendor does his master hand 
Paint the blue skies, the ocean, and the land; 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xill 

Majestic mountains rear their awful head, 

Fair plains extend and bloomy vales are spread. 

The rugged cliff in threatening grandeur towers, 

And joy sports smiling in Arcadian bowers; 

In silent calm the expanded ocean sleeps, 

Or boisterous whirlwinds toss the rising deeps; 

Triumphant vessels o'er his rolling tide 

With painted prows and gaudy streamers glide." 

It will be seen that Bryant had easily caught the trick 
of the classic English couplet. It is interesting to note 
that in the poems, which he was afterwards willing to 
father, there is not a single example of this monotonous, 
artificial verse. The little autobiographic touches in the 
first ten lines of the " Epistle " point back to the strenuous 
days of his boyhood, when, in spite of his feeble health, he 
had to lend a hand in keeping the wolf from the door. 
But he might have made the third and fourth lines truer 
to the fact had he changed his native plains to hills and 
rhymed it with trills, which was, as it were, latent in the 
preceding line ! 

Bryant remained with his uncle until July, 1809. Dur- 
ing the eight months of his Latin studies there he read 
the " Colloquies of Corderius," all of Virgil, and a volume 
of Cicero's orations. 

He then spent more than a year under the roof of the 
Rev. Moses Halleck or Hallock of Plainfield — a gentle- 
man, Bryant says, " somewhat famous for preparing youths 
for college, and his house was called by some the Bread- 
and-Milk College, for the reason that bread-and-milk was 
a frequent dish at the good man's table." Here in two 
months' time he " knew the Greek Testament as if it had 
been English." 



XIV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

He entered Williams College, then a poor struggling 
institution with a president, one professor, and two tutors. 
He was still interested in politics, but had transferred his 
vials of Federalist wrath from Jefferson to Napoleon. The 
following " outbreak of patriotic valor " is preserved with 
its date, January 8, i8io. 

THE GENIUS OF COLUMBIA. 

" Far in the regions of the west. 

On throne of adamant upraised. 
Bright on whose polished sides impressed, 
The Sun's meridian splendors blazed, 

Columbia's Genius sat and eyed 

The Eastern despot's dire career. 
And thus with independent pride. 

She spoke and bade the nations hear : — 

' Go, favored son of glory, go ! 

Thy dark aspiring aims pursue ! 
The blast of domination blow. 

Earth's wide extended regions through ! 

' Tho' Austria, twice subjected, own 
The thunders of thy conquering hand, 

And Tyranny erect his throne 
In hapless Sweden's fallen land ! 

' Yet' know, a nation lives, whose soul 

Regards thee with disdainful eye; 
Undaunted scorns thy proud control. 

And dares thy swarming hordes defy; 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XV 

* Unshaken as their native rocks, 

Its hardy sons heroic rise; 
Prepared to meet thy fiercest shocks, 

Protected by the favoring skies. 

' Their fertile plains and woody hills 
Are fanned by freedom's purest gales ! 

And her celestial presence fills 

The deepening glens and spacious vales.' 

She speaks; through all her listening bands 

A loud applauding murmur flies; 
Fresh valor nerves their willing hands, 

And lights with joy their glowing eyes ! 

Then should Napoleon's haughty pride 
Wake on our shores the fierce affray; 

Grim Terror lowering at his side 
Attendant on his furious way ! 

With quick repulse, his baffled band 
Would seek the friendly shore in vain; 

Bright Justice lift her red right hand 
And crush them on the fatal plain." 

Bryant was educated in accordance with the Calvinistic 
system of theology. " In a community so religious," he 
says, " I naturally acquired habits of devotion. My mother 
and grandmother had taught me, as soon as I could speak, 
the Lord's Prayer and other little petitions suited ^o child- 
hood, and I may be said to have ^^.-nurture^ on Watts's 
devout poems composed for childre^^^-The prayer of the 
publican in the New Testament was often in my ftiouth, 



xvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

and I heard every variety of prayer at the Sunday evening 
services conducted by laymen in private houses. But I 
varied in my private devotions from these models in one 
respect; namely, in supplicating, as I often did, that I 
might receive the gift of poetic genius and write verses 
that might endure. I presented this petition in those early 
years with great fervor, but after a time I discontinued 
the practice, I can hardly say why." 

Perhaps it was because he had become conscious of 
having received the gift. 

Byrant entered college a year in advance, but he 
remained only seven months with his class. He was 
described as "well advanced in his sixteenth year, tall 
and slender in his physical structure, and having a prolific 
growth of dark brown hair." 

While he was at Williams, he wrote an "Indian War 
Song," which began thus: — 

" Ghosts of my wounded brethren rest, 

Shades of the warrior-dead ! 
Nor weave, in shadowy garment drest 

The death-dance round my bed; 
For by the homes in which we dwelt. 
And by the altars where we knelt. 

And by our dying battle songs, 
And by the trophies of your pride. 
And by the wounds of which ye died, 

I swear to avenge your wrongs." 

The North American Indian exercised a strange and 
unconquerable fascination on the muse which inspired all 
our early poets: Longfellow, Whittier, and Bryant were 
deeply enamoured of the poetic hues which hung over the 
aborigine. A century of dishonor has had its retroactive 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xvil 

effect. The Red Skin has vanished from modern verse, as 
he has vanished from our denuded hills. 

Another of Bryant's college exercises was a translation 
from Anacreon, which still exists in two forms, one pre- 
served by his roommate, John Avery, the other Bryant's 
attempt to reproduce it by memory. It has been favorably 
compared with Moore's version : — 

SPRING. 

" Lo ! fragrant spring returns again 
With all the Graces in her train ! 
See, charmed to life the budding rose 
Its meek and purple eyes unclose; 
Mark how the ocean's dimpling breast 
Slow swelling sinks in tranquil rest ! 
O'er the green billow heaving wide 
The sportive sea-fowls gently glide; 
The crane returned from tropic shores 
Bends his long neck and proudly soars. 
Clear smiles the sun with constant ray 
And melts the shadowy mists away; 
The works of busy man appear 
Fair smiling with the smiling year; 
With future plenty teems the earth, 
And gives the swelling olive birth. 
Haste, quick the genial goblet bring 
Crowned with the earliest flowers of spring, 
While ruddy fruits defending bloom 
Where late the Tjlossom breathed perfume, 
Along the bending bough are seen 
Or peep beneath the foliage green." 

One of the exercises at Williams was declamation. 
Bryant attempted to deliver a passage from " Knicker- 



xvill BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

bocker's History of New York," but the humor of the 
work so convulsed him that he could not proceed with it. 
The young poet evidently did not form a wholly favor- 
able idea of Williamstown. He wrote a satire on it in 
which he spoke of it as — 

"Hemmed in with hills, whose heads aspire 
Abrupt and rude and hung with woods," 

but the climate abuses it now with " a lengthened blaze of 
drought," and again "with the tempest's copious floods." 

" A frozen desert now it lies 
And now a sea of mud," 

from which deleterious exhalations rise, 

"And hover o'er the unconscious vale, 
And sleep upon the mountain side." 

As for the college — 

" Why should I sing those reverend domes 

Where science rests in grave repose? 
Ah me ! their terrors and their glooms 

Only the wretched inmate knows. 
Where through the horror-breathing hall 
The pale-faced, moping students crawl 

Like spectral monuments of woe; 
Or, drooping, seek the unwholesome cell 
Where shade, and dust, and cobwebs dwell, 

Dark, dirty, dank, and low." 

If that was the way he felt, it was not strange that he 
should make up his mind to leave Williams and enter 
the junior class at Yale; but greatly to his disappointment 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XIX 

his father discovered that his means did not allow him 
to maintain him there. " I have always thought this un- 
fortunate for me," wrote Bryant, "since it left me but 
superficially acquainted with several branches of educa- 
tion which a college course would have enabled me to 
master and would have given me greater readiness in their 
application." Perhaps it was not so much of a loss as he 
thought. 

He returned home much to the delight of his younger 
brothers and sisters, whose leader he was in all sports 
and wanderings. His brother Arthur remembered their 
antiphonal declamation of William Cullen's translations 
from the " Oidipous " of Euripides: — 

STROPHE I. 

" Where is the wretch condemned to death 

From Delphi's rock sublime? 
Who bears upon his hands of blood 

The inexpiable crime? 
Oh, swifter than the winged pace 

Of stormy-footed steed, 
Fly, murderer, fly the wrath that waits 

The unutterable deed ! 
For lo ! he follows on thy path 

Who fell before thee late 
With gleaming arms and glowing flame, 

And fierce, avenging hate. 

ANTISTROPHE I. 

I heard the God of prophecies 

From high Parnassus speak, 
Where lurks the guilty fugitive 

Apollo bids us seek? 



XX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

'Mong rocks and caves and shadowy woods 

And wild untrodden ways, 
As some lone ox that leaves the herd, 

The trembling outlaw strays; 
Yet vainly from impending doom 

The assassin strives to haste; 
It lives and keeps eternal watch. 

Amid the pathless waste." 

While " through the long laborious day " — ("for mine 
has been the peasant's toil " he sings) — he " hummed the 
meditated lay, while the slow oxen turned the soil," he 
was all the time laying up a store of sound health on which 
he drew all his long life. But he also found opportunities 
to explore his father's medical library; he acquired a con- 
siderable knowledge of chemistry; he became an accom- 
plished botanist; and he devoured and assimilated a vast 
quantity of ancient and modern poetry. He translated 
four of Lucian's " Dialogues of the Dead" into prose, 
made versions of several odes of Anakreon, one of Bion's 
idyls, various choruses from Sophokles and other Greek 
poetry, and wrote original poems that showed the influence 
of Wordsworth, Cowper, Thomson, and Southey. Kirke 
White also during that spring and summer of i8io exerted 
a peculiar fascination upon him. He called his verses 
recently published, "Melodies of Death." Blair's poem, 
"The Grave," and another by Bishop Porteus, strongly 
affected him, and stirred him to the composition of a poem 
which Stoddard calls " the greatest ever written by so 
young a man. " He coined a name for it — " Thanatopsis ; 
or, a View of Death." But he did not show it to any of 
his friends; he hid it in a pigeon-hole of his father's desk. 

Instead of following the paternal ancestral profession 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxi 

of medicine, the young man finally selected that of the 
law, which seemed to offer the readiest ladder to the 
public career of which he dreamed. 

He was accordingly sent in June, 1812, to the law-office 
of a Mr. Howe of Worthington — a village which he 
described as " consisting of a blacksmith-shop and a cow- 
stable," while "the only entertainment it afforded was 
bound up in the pages of Knickerbocker.''^ Mr. Howe 
found him one day reading Wordsworth's " Lyrical Bal- 
lads," and warned him against such a sad waste of time. 

It was a stirring time politically; but if Bryant cast his 
feelings in the form of verse, nothing of it is preserved 
except a Fourth of July ode written at the request of the 
Washington Benevolent Society of Boston : — 

" Should justice call to battle. 

The applauding shout we'd raise; 
A million swords would leave their sheath, 

A million bayonets blaze. 
The stern resolve, the courage high, 

The mind untam'd by ill. 
The fires that warmed our leader's breast 

His followers' bosoms fill. 
Our fathers bore the shock of war; 

Their sons can bear it still ! 

The same ennobling spirit 

That kindles valor's flame. 
That nerves us to a war of right, 

Forbids a war of shame ; 
For not in Conquest's impious train 

Shall Freedom's children stand; 
Nor shall in guilty fray be raised 

The high-souled warrior's hand. 



xxn BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Nor shall the patriot draw the sword 
At Gallia's proud command. 

No ! by our fathers' ashes, 

And by their sacred cause, 
The Gaul shall never call us slaves, 

Shall never give us laws; 
Even let him from a swarming fleet 

Debark his veteran host, 
A living wall of patriot hearts 

Shall fence the frowning coast, — 
A bolder race than generous Spain, 

A better cause we boast." 

The silence of his political muse has been attributed to 
a more personal experience. In August, 1812, a dis- 
tinguished friend of his father's, brought with him on a 
visit to Cummington, "a beautiful and accomplished 
daughter," " with golden hair, eyes emulating the gleaming 
jacinth," "of timid look and soft, retiring mien," . . . 
"moist lip and airy grace of frame." Bryant discovered 
that "the unbidden flame," wakened by these charms, 
"the dawn of love" betrayed. Quite a pathetic ^ittle 
romance is read between the lines that he wrote during the 
next few months. First he deliberates and queries : — 

" Yes, I have listened all too long, 
Deluder ! to thy syren song. 
Ah, love ! when first its musick led 
My cheated steps thy paths to tread, 
I never dreamed those airs divine, 
And those fair, quiet walks were thine. 

And I would once have scoffed in scorn 
At him who dared pronounce me born 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxili 

To bend at beauty's shrine enchained, 
And do the homage I disdained; 
I little thought the hour to see, 
When a blue eye could madden me. 

I seek the scenes that once I sought 
To bring high dreams and holy thought, 
That gave my early numbers birth, 
The unpeopled majesty of earth — 
One image still too loved to fade 
Is with me in the lonely shade. 

Yet, sometimes there dejected strays 
The genius of my better days : 
And I am troubled when I trace 
The darkened grandeur of his face, 
While thus he breathes his warnings high, 
Betwixt rebuke and prophecy. 

When riper years this dream dispel, 
Thy heart shall rue its folly well; 
And thou with bitter tears shalt gaze 
On the black train of wasted days; 
And curse the withering spell at length. 
That broke thy spirit's early strength. 

There were, in early life of thee, 

Who augured high and happily; 

Who loved and watched the opening shoot. 

And propped the stem and looked for fruit; 

And they shall see its blossoms die, 

Withered before a woman's eye." 



XXIV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

He yields, however; then comes separation: — 

"The home thy presence made so dear, 
I leave — the parting hour is past; 
Yet thy sweet image haunts me here, 
In tears, as when I saw thee last. 

It meets me where the woods are deep, 
It comes when twilight tints depart; 

It bends above me while I sleep, 

With pensive looks that pierce my heart." 

A year later (1814) he calls her to return from her sea- 
shore home to the hills : — 

" Come, Galatea ! hath the unlovely main 
A charm thy gentle gazes to detain? 
Spring dwells in beauty here; her thousand flowers 
The glad earth here about the river pours; 
Here o'er the grotto's mouth the poplars play; 
Here the knit vines exclude the prying day. 
Come, Galatea ! bless this calm retreat : 
Come, leave the maniack seas their bounds to beat ! " 

She heard; she came; she was complaisant: — 

" The gales of June were breathing by, 

The twilight's last faint rays were gleaming, 
And midway in the moonless sky, 

The star of Jove was brightly beaming. 

Where by the stream the birchen boughs 
Dark o'er the level marge were playing, 

The maiden of my secret vows 
I met alone, and idly straying. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXV 

And since that hour — for then my love 
Consenting heard my passion pleaded — 

Full well she knows the star of Jove, 

And loves the stream with beeches shaded." 

Again he sings of her in Spenserian stanza, as Horace 
says, " all golden " : — 

" Dear are these heights, tho' bleak their sides they raise, 

For here, as forth in lonely walk we fare. 
Her cheek to mine soft Evelina lays. 

And breathes those gentle vows that none may share. 

Mine is her earliest flame, her virgin care, 
The look of love her speaking eye that fills. 

To the known shade, when Eve's consenting star 
Sees his soft image in the trembling rills, 
My lovely Oread comes, my charmer of the hills." 

He has to call old Bion to aid him express his feel- 
ings : — 

" Hail, holy star of love, thou fairest gem 

Of all that twinkle in the veil of night ! 
As the broad moon to thee, so thou to them 

Superior in beauty beamest bright. 

Lend me, while she delays, thy tender light; 
Thou for whom Sol, to yield his turn to thine. 

Stooped to the glowing west his hastened flight; 
On deeds of quiet I call thee not to shine, 
Not thefts, but those of love, and mutual love is mine." 

But the star of Jove must set, the moon become veiled: 
young love is crossed : — 

*' Ah, who would tempt the hopeless spell 
Whose magic binds the slaves of love? 



XXVI BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

The heart his power has touched can tell 
How false to peace his flatteries prove. 

Each silent sign by passion taught 

To tell the wish that thrills the breast; 

The gaze with speechless meaning fraught 
The glowing lip in secret prest; 

The stolen hour by moonlight past, 

When hands are met, and sighs are deep; 

Are wanderings all, for which at last 

The heart must bleed, the eye must weep." 

First comes the rapture, then comes the rupture : — 

" I knew thee fair, I deemed thee free 

From fraud, and guile, and faithless art; 
Yet had I seen as now I see. 

Thine image ne'er had stained my heart. 

Trust not too far thy beauty's charms; 

Tho' fair the hand that wove my chain, 
I will not stoop with fettered arms 

To do the homage I disdain. 

Yes, Love has lost his power to wound. 

I gave the treacherous homicide, 
With bow unstrung and pinions bound, 

A captive to the hands of Pride." 

A collateral or subordinate morbid strain attended this 
effort to escape from the bondage of a love less" mutual " 
than he had dreamed. Three poems, making a sort of 
cantata, are the outcome of it. His " dear one " is dead 
to him. He therefore imagines her in the dark and silent 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXVll 

tomb. Death even sends her as a messenger to add her 
persuasions to those of the ghosts. 

A CHORUS OF GHOSTS. 

*' Come to thy couch of iron rest ! 
Come share our silent bed ! 
There 's room within the graveyard's bounds 
To lay thy weary head. 

Come, thou shalt have a home like ours, 

A low and narrow cell. 
With a gray stone to mark the spot; 

For thee the turf shall swell. 

Cold are its walls — but not for thee — 

And dark, but thou shalt sleep; 
Unfelt, the enclosing clods above 

Their endless guard shall keep. 

Yes, o'er thee where thy lyre was strung 

Thine earliest haunts to hail, 
Shall the tall crow-foot's yellow gems 

Bend in the mountain gale. 

There, as he seeks his tardy kine. 

When flames the evening sky. 
With thoughtful look the college boy 

Shall pass thy dwelling by. 

Why shudder at that rest so still, 

That night of solid gloom? 
If refuge thou wouldst seek from woe, 

'T is in the dreamless tomb. 



xxvili BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

There is no tie that binds to life, 
No charm that wins thy stay; 

To-morrow none will recollect 
That thou didst live to-day. 

Come, we will close thy glazing eye, 

Compose thy dying head; 
And gently from its house of clay 

Thy struggling spirit lead." 

APPEAL TO DEATH. 

" The night has reached its solemn noon; 

And, blotting half the sky, 
The clouds before the westering moon 

In broad black masses lie. 
No voice is heard, no living sound. 

Not even the zephyr's breath; 
And I, where sheds the grove profound 
A night of deeper horror round, 

High converse hold with death. 

He comes, but not the spectre grim 

By fabling dreamers planned, 
With wickered ribs and fleshless limb. 

And scythe and ebbing sand, 
But dim as through the polar shade, 

When sails the gathering storm; 
A shadowy presence vast and dread, 
In terrors wrapt, which ne'er arrayed 

Distinguishable form. 

By all the dying feel and fear, 
By every fiery throe. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXIX 

By all that tells thy triumphs here, 

And all we dread below; 
By those dim realms, those portals pale 

Whose keys 't is thine to keep, 
I charge thee, tell the thrilling tale, 
I charge thee, draw aside the veil 

That hides the dear one's sleep." 

death's messenger. 

*' It was my love; that form I knew, 

The same, that glazed unmoving eye; 
And that pure cheek of bloodless hue. 
As when she slept with those that die. 

Why leave thy quiet cell for me? 

Have not my tears been duly shed? 
Have I not taught the willow-tree 

To weep with me above thy head ? 

And called the earliest blooms of May, 
The latest sweets that autumn knows, 

To strew thy grave, and brush away 
From the cold turf the winter snows? 

I deemed that thou my dreams wouldst bless, 
A seraph flusht with heavenly bloom, 

And gild with gleams of happiness 
My few brief years of care and gloom. 

But oh ! that eye is ghastly bright, 

It glares with death, as mine will soon; 

And that blanched brow is cold and white 
As the pale mist beneath the moon. 



XXX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Oh, wave not that dim hand again ! 

Oh, point not to thy lowly cell ! 
For visions flash across my brain, 

And thoughts too horrible to tell. 

I may not follow thee, my love, 

Nor now thy dreamless slmnber share. 

The cold clods press thy limbs above, 
And darkness and the worm are there. 

Yet a few hom's, and Nature's hand 
Itself shall sorrow's balm apply; 

And I shall bless the kind command 

That cools this brow and seals this eye." 

When a young man falls into such a morbid state as 
that a change is desirable. Bryant would have been glad 
to go to Boston, but his father wrote him, "You have 
already cost me four hundred dollars at Mr. Howe's, and 
I have other children equally entitled to my care." 

His grandfather, Dr. Philip Bryant, was still living at 
Bridgewater, and offered him a home while he should 
pursue his studies with the Hon. William Baylies, M.C. 
Here Bryant worked diligently; he wrote: — 

"O'er Coke's black-letter page, 
Trimming the lamp at eve, 't is mine to pore, 

Well pleased to see the venerable sage 
Unlock his treasured wealth of legal lore; 
And I that loved to trace the woods before 

And climb the hills, a playmate of the breeze, 
Have vowed to tune the rural lay no more. 

Have bid my useless classics sleep at ease, 
And left the race of bards to scribble, starve, and 
freeze," 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXXI 

He had not been a month in Bridgewater before he was 
called upon to deliver the Fourth of July ode for the year 
1814. He deplored the folly and ravages of war, rejoiced 
in the fall of Napoleon, praised England for her valor and 
persistency, and upbraided the Americans for not taking 
a hand in European affairs : — 

"Our skies have glowed with burning towns, 

Our snows have blushed with gore; 
And fresh is many a nameless grave 

By Erie's weeping shore. 
In sadness let the anthem flow — 

But tell the men of strife, 
On their own heads shall rest the guilt 

Of all this waste of life. 

Well have ye fought, ye friends of man. 

Well was your valor shown; 
The grateful nations breathe from war — 

The tyrant lies o'erthrown. 
Well might ye tempt the dangerous fray. 

Well dare the desperate deed: — 
Ye knew how just your cause — ye knew 

The voice that bade ye bleed. 

To thee the mighty plan we owe 

That bade the world be free; 
The thanks of nations, Queen of Isles ! 

Are poured to heaven and thee; 
Yes, hadst not thou, with fearless arm. 

Stayed the descending scourge; 
These strains, that chant a nation's birth, 
Had haply hymned its dirge." 



xxxii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

These specimens of verse more vigorous than poetic 
show a healthier tone. The tonic of change was working. 

Mr. BayHes made a confidential secretary of the young 
student, and during his absence in Washington intrusted 
him with the care of his business. 

He did not entirely scorn pleasure. In a letter to a 
Worthington friend he wrote how well contented he was, 
and though he mourned " such cool, comfortable lounging- 
places " as Ward's store, and Mills's tavern, and Taylor's 
grog-shop, would not exchange Bridgewater for Worthing- 
ton "if the wealth of the Indies were thrown into that 
side of the balance." Occasional balls, excursions with 
young ladies, who even when they danced till three o'clock 
in the morning were the next day " wonderfully sociable 
and alert," and marching with the militia, offered diver- 
sions. 

If he still meditated on death it was with a less morbid 
spirit, as is shown by a poem dated, July, 1815 : — 

" Oh, thou whom the world dreadeth ! Art thou nigh, 

To thy pale kingdom. Death, to summon me? 
While life's scarce-tasted cup yet charms my eye, 

And yet my youthful blood is dancing free 

And fair in prospect smiles futurity. 
Go, to the crazed with care thy quiet bring; 

Go to the galleyslave who pines for thee; 
Go to the wretch whom throes of torture wring, 
And they will bless thy hand, that plucks the fiery sting. 

I from thine icy touch with horror shrink, 

That leads me to the place where all must lie; 

And bitter is my misery to think 

That in the springtime of my being, I 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxill 

Must leave this pleasant land, and this fair sky; 
All this hath charmed me from my feeble birth; 

The friends I love, and every gentle tie; 
All that disposed to thought, or waked to mirth; 
And lay me darkly down, and mix with the dull earth." 



In November he was taken ill and obliged to return to 
his home. While there he read "Lara," but judged that 
it could not be Byron's, because it showed so little of his 
energy of expression, his exuberance of thought, the 
peculiar vein of melancholy which imparts its tinge to 
everything he writes, in fact, of all the stronger features 
of his genius. In a letter to Mr. Baylies he asks: " May 
it not be the effort of some American genius? " 

The following year, July 25, 18 1 6, Bryant received a 
commission as adjvitant in the Massachusetts militia, but 
the end of the war, which expired in a blaze of glory at 
the battle of New Orleans, made it an empty honor. 
Little did the world realize what treasonable sentiments the 
youth had been indulging in his letters to his father. He 
had even advocated possible secession ! The following 
stanzas from an ode written for the Howard Society of 
Boston show that he was not sorry for peace : — 

" Ah, taught by many a woe and fear, 
We welcome thy returning wing; 

And Earth, O Peace ! is glad to hear 
Thy name among her echoes ring. 
And Winter looks a lovelier Spring, 

And hoarsely though his tempest roars. 
The gale that •drives our sleet shall bring 

The world's large commerce to our shores. 



XXXlV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

My country pierced with many a wound ! 

Thy pulse with slow recovery beats. 
War flies our shores, but all around 

The eye his bloody footprint meets, 

As when the dewy morning greets, 
Serene in smiles and rosy light. 

Some prostrate city through whose streets 
The earthquake past at dead of night." 

In August, 1815, Bryant, who had passed his examina- 
tions at Plymouth (the certificate duly sprinkled with 
snuff instead of sand), was admitted as an attorney of the 
court of common pleas. He returned to Cummington, 
and there, with childish things (for he was about to reach 
his majority), he threw aside forever what Mr. Parke God- 
win calls "his boyish heroics, those Tyrtaean drum-beats; 
his amatory sobs and sighs are suppressed; his worked 
colloquies with Death are outgrown." He now begins to 
study nature. Here are a few unfinished sketches show- 
ing the growth of the new spirit : — 

"The cloudless heavens are cold and bright, 
The shrieking blast is in the sky; 
And all the long autumnal night 
Whirl the dry leaves in eddies by. 

The sun is risen, but wan and chill. 

Wades through a broken cloud; 
And in the woods that clothe the hill 

November winds are loud. 

Hark ! how with frantic wing the blast 
Buffets the forest bare. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXXV 

Though long ago its branches cast 
The last dry leaflet there. 

The new-risen sun's mild rays adorn, 

The clouds beneath him rolled; 
And the first scarlet tints of morn 

Have brightened into gold. 
With many a note the wild is cheered; 

With many a rustling foot resounds; 
The squirrel's merry chirp is heard; 

From knoll to knoll the rabbit bounds; 
The woodpecker amidst the shade 

Is heard his drumming bill to ply; 
On whirring wings along the glade 

Sweeps the brown partridge by. 

Now, ere she bids our fields adieu 

With fragrant fingers June delights, 
Profuse with flowers of sunny hue, 

To clothe our plains and grassy heights, 
Through banks of gold the stream is rolled. 

That half its gleaming waters hide ; 

In gold the mountain rears its pride, 

In gold the sloping vales subside, 
The meadows wave in gold. 

On either side along the road 

Glitters a yellow margin gay, 
But where the heifer crops her food, 

Less glowing tints the tract betray; 
And far around as eye can see, 

One blossomed waste is all the scene, 

Save verdant cornfields stretched between 
. Or groves or orchards rising green 
In sumnier majesty." 



XXX VI BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Even before he left Bridgewater he had written "The 
Yellow Violet." ^ The " Fragment " now known as " An 
Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," ^ was composed 
in the noble forest opposite his father's house. 

In December he determined to settle in Plainfield, a 
hamlet about seven miles away and visible from his own 
home. He went there on foot, feeling very forlorn and 
desolate. Across the brilliant sunshiny sky flew a solitary 
bird. That night he wrote "The Waterfowl,"^ which 
alone would have made him immortal. 

Plainfield was too small and obscure for such a man. 
He disliked the narrowness, bigotry, and jealousy of the 
natives. Yet he wrote: " I could have made a living out 
of them in spite of their teeth had I chosen to stay. He 
stayed there eight months, and then moved to Great Bar- 
rington, where he entered into practice with George H. 
Ives, Esq. 

Here he was attacked by a disease of the lungs which 
wasted him to a shadow. His father and sister were 
already doomed by that same insidious foe of New Eng- 
land. But Bryant conquered it by systematic exercise, 
and great care of his diet. 

In spite of his poor health, he for some time devoted 
himself to business, and paid no heed to the imperative 
calls of the Muses. His father wrote him that Mr. Wil- 
lard Phillips was desirous that he should " contribute some- 
thing to his new review." This was the North A))ierican 
Review, which had been started in May, 1815. 

Dr. Bryant happened to find " Thanatopsis," "The 
Fragment," and a few other poems in his desk. Without 
saying anything to his son he copied them, took them to 
Boston, and left them with the editor. Phillips was 

1 p. 169. 2 p. 122. 2 p. jg^^ 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxvii 

delighted with them and showed them to Richard H. 
Dana. Dana exclaimed, — 

"Ah, Phillips! you have been imposed upon; no one 
on this side the Atlantic is capable of writing such verses." 
Phillips replied, — 

" I know the gentleman who wrote the best of them, at 
least, very well; an old acquaintance of mine — Dr. 
Bryant, at this moment sitting in the State House in 
Boston, as Senator from Hampshire County." 

Dana made a pilgrimage to the State House, had a good 
look at the supposed poet, and decided against him. " It 
is a good head," he said " but I do not see ' Thanatopsis ' 
in it." 

Of course the truth as to its authorship was soon known, 
and Bryant was invited to contribute regularly to the 
Review. 

Meantime he was progressing in his profession, irksome 
as it was to him, for his heart was not and could not be 
in it. He bought out his partner, and in 1819 was chosen 
tithing-man, and town clerk, and made justice of the peace. 

His father died in March, 1820, but this sad loss was 
atoned to him by the acquaintance, speedily ripening into 
love, of Miss Fanny Fairchild, the orphan daughter of 
respectable farming people. She was eighteen; " a very 
pretty blonde, small in person, with light brown hair, 
gray eyes, a graceful shape, a dainty foot, transparent and 
delicate hands, and a wonderfully frank and sweet expres- 
sion of face." 

Bryant celebrated her in tender ditties — only one of 
which, "Oh, Fairest of the Rural Maids," 1 Bryant re- 
tained among his published works. 

^ p. 126. 



xxxvill BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
One other is given by Mr. Godwin: — 

"Though summer sun and freshening shower 
Have decked my love's deserted bower, 
Though bees about the threshold come 
Among the scented blooms to hum, 
Though there the bind-weed climbs and weaves 
Her spotted veil of flowers and leaves, 
Though sweet the spot, I cannot bear 
To gaze a single instant there. 

Ah ! there no longer deigns to dwell 

The peerless one I love so well; 

And vainly may I linger near, 

The musick of her step to hear. 

And catch the spheres of azure light — 

The glance my heart has proved too bright; 

Fair is the spot — I own it fair. 

But cannot look an instant there ! 

That was written in 1 8 19, while Miss Fairchild was 
visiting in Western New York. On her return, he engaged 
himself to her, and they were married June 1 1, 1821. 

In a letter whimsically describing the melancholy cere- 
mony, which included the muttering of certain cabalistic 
expressions, which he declared himself too frightened to 
recollect, he assures his mother that he has not "played 
the fool and married an Ethiop for the jewel in her ear," 
He says, — 

"I looked only for goodness of heart, an ingenuous and 
affectionate disposition, a good understanding, etc., and 
the character of my wife is too frank and single-hearted 
to suffer me to fear that I may be disappointed. I do 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xxxix 

myself a wrong; I did not look for these nor any other 
qualities, but they trapped me before I was aware, and 
now I am married in spite of myself." 

His mother is said to have exclaimed on reading that 
letter, — 

"He make a fool of himself! He has never done so 
yet, and could n't if he tried ! " 

The spirit with which he entered into the solemn con- 
tract is shown in a prayer, written before the marriage, 
found among his papers. It begins: — 

*' May Almighty God mercifully take care of our happi- 
ness, here and hereafter. May we ever continue constant 
to each other, and mindful of our mutual promises of 
attachment and truth. In due time, if it be the will of 
Providence, may we become more nearly connected with 
each other, and together may we lead a long, happy, and 
innocent life, without any diminution of affection, till we 
die. May there never be any jealousy, distrust, coldness, 
or dissatisfaction between us, nor occasion for any, nothing 
but kindness, forbearance, mutual confidence, and atten- 
tion to each other's happiness. And that we may be less 
unworthy of so great a blessing, may we be assisted to 
cultivate all the benign and charitable affections and offices, 
not only toward each other, but toward our neighbors, 
the human race, and all the creatures of God." 

It was Mr. Bryant's duty as town clerk to publish the 
banns of marriage, but in his own case, instead of reading 
them aloud, as usual, he pinned the required notice on the 
vestibule door of the church, and kept out of sight. The 
only blot on the town records, which he kept with 
remarkable neatness, was when he recorded his marriage, 
and afterwards, the only interlineation was when in enter- 
ing the birth of his first child, he accidentally left out the 
mother's name. 



xl BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

A few months after his marriage, Bryant was invited to 
deliver the poem for the $. b- K. Society, at Cambridge. 
He decided to accept the honor, and during his visit 
made the personal acquaintance of all the literati of 
Boston. His poem was entitled "The Ages." Bryant 
was no orator, and his delivery was rather monotonous, 
but the occasion was a success, considering "the grave 
and elevated tone of the poem." 

His new friends insisted that he should publish his 
poems in a volume, and shortly after his return to Great 
Barrington, a pamphlet of forty-four pages appeared, con- 
taining "The Ages," " To a Waterfowl," the "Frag- 
ment from Simonides," the "Inscription," "The Yellow 
Violet," "The Song," "Green River," and "Thana- 
topsis." 

The October number of the N'orth American Reviezv 
printed an elaborate criticism of the poems, in which it 
spoke of the "strain of pure and high sentiment that ran 
through them, not indefinitely and obscurely shadowed," 
but animating bright images and clear thoughts, of the 
"simple and delicate portraiture of the subtle and ever- 
vanishing beauties of nature which she seems willing to 
conceal as her choicest things, and which none but minds 
the most susceptible can seize, and no other but a writer 
of great genius can body forth in words." 

"The whole is of rich material, skilfully compacted." 
Some people thought this praise exaggerated, but Mr. 
Gulian C. Verplanck, of New York, a redoubtable critic, 
chimed in with it, calling attention in the American to 
" their exquisite taste, their keen relish for the beauties of 
nature, their magnificent imagery, and their pure and 
majestic morality." 

The little volume attracted some attention, even in 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xli 

England, where a writer in Blacktvood prophesied that 
Bryant might assume a high rank among English poets. 
Hartley Coleridge declared that " To a Waterfowl " was 
the best short poem in the English language. 

One of the most prominent families in Great Barrington 
was that of Judge Sedgwick. Not long after the death of 
Dr. Bryant, Mr. Henry D, Sewall, who was editing a Uni- 
tarian Hymn Book, wrote to Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick, 
urging her to enlist Bryant as a contributor. Miss Sedg- 
wick invited Bryant to call upon her, and soon was able to 
report the success of her mission. She described him as 
a very interesting man, with a charming countenance and 
modest but not bashful manners. 

It was through the influence of the Sedgwicks he was 
invited to deliver a Fourth of July oration at Stockbridge. 
Theodore Sedgwick, Judge Sedgwick's second son, "a 
man of many virtues," known as " a politician without 
party vices," exerted a great influence upon him, and 
probably was the first to incline him to the doctrine of 
Free Trade. Mr. Henry Sedgwick, the eldest of the 
family, was a prominent lawyer in New York. Bryant, 
who was urged by his friends to write a long poem, but 
did not believe in long poems, tried to write a farce in- 
tended for the stage. It was entitled " The Heroes," and 
was meant to ridicule the practice of duelling. Bryant 
showed it to Charles Sedgwick, who sent it to his brother 
Henry. If had some brisk and clever dialogues and 
amusing situations, but Bryant had neither a comic nor a 
dramatic genius, and the play was condemned. But Mr. 
Henry Sedgwick, in returning the farce with his adverse 
criticisms, urged Bryant to make New York his home. 
He held out certain prospects of literary work, not very 
great in themselves, but sufficiently alluring to decide 



xlii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Bryant to go on a prospecting tour. At first, nothing defi- 
nite came of it. He widened his acquaintance with the 
rising lights of our literature : met Cooper, Halleck, Sands, 
Sparks, and others, and was fascinated with New York life. 

On his return, the N'orth Ainerica7i Revieivh^iXi^ closed 
to him on account of change in the editorial control, he 
was invited to contribute to the United States Literaj-y 
Gazette, a new Boston periodical, conducted by Theophilus 
Parsons. During about two years' time, between 1823 and 
1825, while he was writing for the Gazette, he produced 
nearly thirty poems — his very best work. It is interest- 
ing to know that he dernanded only two dollars apiece for 
such poems as " The Massacre of Scio," " Rizpah," " Song 
of the Greek Amazon," "The Murdered Traveller," 
"Hymn to the North Star," "The Lapse of Time," 
"The Song of the Stars," and " The Forest Hymn." The 
publishers, however, appreciating his modesty, offered him 
$200 a year for an average of one hundred lines a month, 
and expressed "their profound regret that they were unable 
to offer a compensation more adequate."- 

This was better than what he got from his first book, 
the profits of which on 270 copies sold out of 750 printed, 
were $14.92. 

Once a gentleman picked up a copy of this earliest edi- 
tion. He told Bryant that he paid twenty dollars for it. 

" More, by a long shot, than I received for writing the 
whole work," replied the poet. 

All the time he was pursuing the law, but with less and 
less satisfaction, if with greater and greater success. He 
argued cases in Northampton, New Haven, and even 
Boston, and " evinced the very highest learning, acumen, 
and assiduity " in his business. A case which, owing to 
a mere technicality, was unjustly decided against one of 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xliii 

his clients, seems to have been the determining cause of his 
abandonment of the law. Another reason may be found 
in the death of his sister, Sarah Snell, in her twenty- 
second year. It was with reference to her that he wrote 
the sonnet on page i88, and to her are references in " The 
Past " 1 and " The Death of the Flowers." 

On Bryant's second visit to New York, in February, 
1825, — the journey then took three days and a night, — 
there was some prospect, as he wrote his wife, of a literary 
paper to be established under his direction. He was 
greatly disappointed in the failure of the project, but in 
March he was back again, and associated with Mr. Henry 
J. Anderson in the management of the Literary Review.^ 
a bantling established the year before by Mr. Robert C. 
Sands, author of " Yamoyden." 

The first number appeared in June, and contained Hal- 
leck's "Marco Bozzaris," Dana's "Raven," and Bry- 
ant's " Song of Pitcairn's Island." 

His first summer in the big city was rather trying. It 
was intensely hot : the brunt of the editorial drudgery fell 
on him. He was much alone. The prospects of the 
journal were not very bright, and his salary was only a 
thousand dollars a year. He boarded on Chambers Street, 
near the Unitarian Church, in the family of a Frenchman 
named Evrard, where he had a chance for practice in 
French. His mood is shown in his poem on "June." "^ In 
midsummer he was able to make a little visit to Cumming- 
ton, and, under the inspiration of his native hills, he wrote 
" The Skies " ^ and " Lines on Revisiting the Country." * 

In the autumn he brought his family with him, and life 
seemed fairer. He spent his leisure in perfecting his 
French, and Provengal, and in acquiring Italian, Spanish, 
^ p. 14. ^ p. 144. 3 p, 186. * p. 172. 



xliv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

and Portuguese. His principal friends were Cooper, Ver- 
planck, and Sands, and especially the refined and saintly 
William Ware. 

In the following April he delivered four lectures on 
English Poetry. They were elementary and not profound, 
but clear and well considered, and abounded in illustrative 
material, showing insight and thought. Bryant also be- 
came a professor in the newly organized National Acad- 
emy of the Arts of Design, of which Mr. S. F. B. Morse, 
afterwards the inventor of the telegraph, was the first 
president. Bryant gave four lectures on "Mythology," 
and repeated them for five years with distinguished suc- 
cess. 

In March, 1826, Bryant's Review and The New York 
Literary Gazette was merged into the Netv York Literary 
Gazette or Ame7-ican AthejKetim. Four months later this 
high sounding but feeble venture was consolidated — if 
things so unsubstantial could be called consolidated — with 
The United States Gazette of Boston, under the title oi 
The United States Review and Literary Gazette. 

In this final arrangement Mr, Bryant received one-quar- 
ter interest, and five hundred dollars salary, but with 
divided editorial control; and in those dark days of Ameri- 
can literature there was little hope of success. Again we 
may read Bryant's mood in "The Journey of Life." ^ 
He renewed his license to practise in New York, and was 
for some time associated with Mr. Henry Sedgwick, but 
did not appear in any of the courts. 

During the summer of 1826, when his affairs seemed at 
their lowest ebb, he was asked to act as temporary assist- 
ant editor of the New York Evening Post, one of the 
oldest journals of the city, the profits of which "were 
1 p. 187. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xlv 

estimated at about thirty thousand dollars a year." "This 
is much better than poetry and magazines," wrote Bryant 
to his wife. 

Before the Review came to grief Bryant contributed to 
it " The Damsel of Peru," " The African Chief," " Spring 
in Town," "The Gladness of Nature," "The Greek 
Partisan," "The Two Graves," and "The Conjunction of 
Jupiter and Venus," besides a number of insignificant 
prose pieces. 

Already, it may be remarked, the inspiration which 
seemed to flow through his earlier verse was beginning to 
wane, Bryant's poetry was like a well of natural gas, — 
when first opened it flows with the greatest pressure. 
Most of his best poems were written before he was forty. 

After the death of the Reviezv he joined with Verplanck 
and Sands in editing the annual known as The Talis- 
man^ and during three years contributed to it about a 
score of poems, some of which had already appeared in 
the Reviezv, and about a dozen pieces in prose. Sands 
lived in Hoboken, and the trio of editors made the hos- 
pitable house their headquarters, and had a holiday-time of 
it in arranging plans for their pet work. A few years later 
they published the principal contents of the three volumes 
as Miscellanies, with more popularity and profit, 

Bryant's connection with the Evening Post began dur- 
ing Jackson's stormy administration; and the President 
found the paper his strongest supporter. Godwin says, 
" It caught a good deal of its hero's courage and energy, 
and could be, in spite of its habitual decorum, exasperating 
and fiery." 

Bryant had naturally a quick temper, and, though he 
generally kept control of it, he once met a political adver- 
sary in the street, and gave him a thrashing. It was the 



xlvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

only time in fifty years' experience that he forgot himself; 
and he never ceased to regret that lapse from dignity. 

By February, 1829, he was allowed a small interest in 
the Post, and five months later was promoted to be 
editor-in-chief, — a position which he held for half a cen- 
tury. Henry Sedgwick loaned him two thousand dollars, 
and he acquired half-interest in the paper, which ulti- 
mately brought him to wealth. How absorbing his jour- 
nalistic duties were may be judged from the fact that he 
wrote only thirty lines in 1830, only sixty in 1 83 1, two 
hundred and twenty-two in 1832, none in 1833, and only 
an average of a hundred lines a year in the first ten years 
of his editorship. 

In 1 83 1 he brought out a volume of his poems. It was 
republished in London through the good offices of Wash- 
ington Irving. In 1832 he went to Illinois to visit his 
brothers, who, on the death of their mother, had emigrated 
to the West. During this visit he wrote "The Prairies." 1 

A journey ^beyond the Alleghanies in those days was an 
event, and Bryant enjoyed it so much that henceforward 
his chief recreation was travel. In 1834 he went to 
Europe with his family. He had applied for the honorary 
office of bearer of despatches, which would have given 
him a certain freedom of entrance and other facilities, 
but the place, though promised, was not granted. This 
was the first and only time that he ever asked for office. 
He spent nearly two years abroad, and chronicled his im- 
pressions in letters and in his *' Sketches of Travel." 
His abrupt departure from the charms of Heidelberg, 
where Longfellow had just joined his circle, was caused by 
news of the serious illness of his colleague, William Leg- 
gett, in whose hands the Post had been left. He left his 

» p. 29. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xlvii 

family and sailed from Havre. The voyage, by packet, 
lasted nearly two months, and was so rough that Bryant 
was ill nearly all the time. 

On his return, in March, 1836, Washington Irving, 
Halleck, and upwards of twenty other prominent New 
York authors and public men, tendered him a compli- 
mentary dinner. But Bryant, feeling that he "had done 
nothing to merit such a distinction," declined it. 

In August the Harpers brought out a neat edition of 
his poems, and paid him six hundred and twenty-five dol- 
lars for an issue of twenty-five hundred copies. 

At this time he seriously thought of disposing of his 
newspaper interest, and going out West with a few thou- 
sand dollars to try his fortunes. He was disgusted with 
the mercantile spirit of New York. He wrote his brother, 
"The entire thoughts of the inhabitants seem to be given 
to the acquisition of wealth: nothing else is talked of. 
The city is dirtier, and noisier, and more uncomfortable 
than it ever was before. I have had my fill of a town 
life, and begin to wish to pass a little time in the country. 
I have been employed long enough with the management 
of a daily newspaper, and desire leisure for literary occu- 
pations that I love better." 

At this time says his son-in-law, who then made his 
acquaintance: "He was of middle age and medium 
height, spare in figure, with a clean-shaven face, un- 
usually large head, bright eyes, and a wearied, severe, 
almost saturnine expression of countenance." But Mr. 
Godwin was attracted by his " exceeding gentleness of 
manner," the rare sweetness of his voice, and the extraor- 
dinary purity of his English. He seemed at first to have 
no fun in him, but " when a lively turn was given to some 
remark, the upper part of his face, particularly the eyes, 



xlviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

gleamed with a singular radiance, and a short, quick, 
staccato, but hearty laugh acknowledged the humorous 
perception. It was scarcely acknowledged, however, 
before the face settled down again into its habitual stern- 
ness." 

This stern, apparently unsympathetic, recluse found him- 
self bound by fate to his newspaper. Often impelled by 
duty to take sides with unpopular men and measures, it 
was not strange that at first the Post sunk to less than a 
paying property, and had an up-hill road. The average 
yearly net earnings of it prior to 1849 were about ten thou- 
sand dollars, of which his share was forty per cent. In 
1850 it brought in sixteen thousand dollars. Ten years 
later it was paying seventy thousand dollars. It was sold 
shortly after Mr. Bryant's death for nine hundred and 
sixty thousand dollars. 

It must have been a satisfaction to him to feel that, 
owing largely to his zeal, the public were educated up to 
see the immorality of duelling, the absurdity of excessive 
tariffs, the wrong of banking monopolies, and the oppres- 
sion of the prevailing inspection laws; the wickedness 
and inexpediency of negro slavery, and to acknowledge 
the rights of working-men to form trade unions, and mul- 
titudes of other "doctrines " which had to fight for rec- 
ognition. To him New York largely owes its Central 
Park, the formation of which he vigorously advocated for 
years. 

It is not the province of this sketch to follow Bryant's 
editorial career, important though it was. It lasted for 
more than half a century, and covered a period of vast 
interest. It was amazing that Bryant was enabled, with 
his peculiar mental organization, with his dislike of pub- 
licity, to continue in the fore front of such tremendous 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xlix 

conflicts, to preserve always such unbending dignity, and 
to lead the public to higher thinking on so many weighty 
subjects, and at the same time to keep a hold on the con- 
templative life. 

This he was enabled to do by the twofold nature of 
man. At his editorial desk he was the politician, parti- 
san. But he found a home and retreat at Roslyn on Long 
Island, — "a nook such as a poet might well choose, both 
for its shady seclusion and its beautiful prospects, embow- 
ered in woods that covered a row of gentle hills, and 
catching glimpses of a vast expanse of water enlivened in 
the distance by the sails of a metropolitan commerce." 
It was an old Quaker mansion, " containing many spacious 
rooms, surrounded by shrubberies and grand trees, and 
communicating by a shelving lawn with one of the pret- 
tiest of small fresh- water lakes." 

Here, from 1843 till the end of his life, except when he 
was travelling, he spent two or three days of every week, 
" keeping his friendships in repair," cultivating his love 
for flowers and gardening, and often entertaining dis- 
tinguished strangers. In 1865 he also bought the home- 
stead and farm at Cummington, and there usually spent 
several weeks in the summer. 

In 1842 Bryant published "The Fountain and Other 
Poems," containing what he had written since his return 
from Europe: "The Living Lost," " Cat erskill Falls," 
" The Strange Lady," " Earth's Children cleave to Earth," 
" The Hunter's Vision," " A Presentiment," " The Child's 
Funeral," "The Battlefield," "The Future Life," "The 
Death of Schiller," "The Fountain," " The Winds," 
"" The Old Man's Counsel," " An Evening Revery," " The 
Painted Cup," "A Dream," "The Antiquity of Free- 
dom," " The Maiden's Sorrow," " The Return of Youth," 



1 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

and "A Hymn of the Sea." They were issued by Put- 
nam & Wiley. The Harper volume in the mean time had 
gone through five editions. 

Just before he bought his Roslyn estate he travelled 
through the South and had a delightful reception every- 
where. He spent two or three weeks of that summer of 
1843 on the borders of Lake Champlain. In 1845 he 
made his second journey to Europe, spending two months 
in England and three on the Continent. Everywhere he 
met the most famous men of the day, and was lionized by 
them. Particularly did he enjoy a visit to Wordsworth, 
though he was not impressed favorably by the man. 

On his return he superintended a new and complete 
edition of his works, which was published in December, 
1846. Among the new poems which it contained were 
" The Waning Moon," " The Stream of Life," and " The 
Unknown Way," which reflect the depression and anxiety 
of those days. 

In May, 1847, Bryant's mother died in Illinois. In a 
poem beginning, 

" The May sun sheds an amber light," 

he refers to her as " The gentle and the good, who once 
cropt the white blossoms of the spring with a fairer hand, 
and taught him to listen to the song of birds in a voice 
far sweeter than their own." 

"That music of the early year 

Brings tears of anguish to my eyes. 
My heart aches when the flowers appear, 
For then I think of her, who lies 
Within her grave, 
Low in her grave." 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. li 

In 1849 Bryant visited Cuba, stopping at Florida on his 
way, and had hardly reached home, when, still under the 
impulse of travel, he started for Europe for the third time. 
He was back in New York in December and, at the 
instance of G. P. Putnam, soon published a little volume 
entitled, "Letters of a Traveller," containing selections 
from his contributions to the Post during his various 
journeys. 

Two years later he made a still longer journey, visiting 
not only the Continent, but even the Nile and the far East. 
The results of this journey are embodied in his " Letters 
from the East," published in 1869. 

On his return he took an active part in the organization 
of the Republican party. He sometimes even contributed 
satirical verses to the Post^ as, for instance, in the follow- 
ing doggerel, which commemorates the failure of Preston 
Brooks to meet Anson Burlingame in Canada for a duel, 
shortly after the dastardly assault on Charles Sumner : — 

BROOKS'S CANADA SONG. 

*'To Canada, Brooks was asked to go 
To waste of powder a pound or so; 
He sighed as he answered, No, no, no; 
They might take my life on the way, you know, 
For I am afraid, afraid, afraid. 
Bully Brooks is afraid. 

Those Jersey railroads I can't abide, 
'T is a dangerous thing in the trains to ride. 
Each brakeman carries a knife by his side; 
They 'd cut my throat, and they 'd cut it wide, 
And I am afraid, afraid, afraid. 
Bully Brooks is afraid. 



lii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

There are savages haunting New York Bay 
To murder strangers that pass that way; 
The Quaker Garrison keeps them in pay, 
And they kill, at least, a score a day, 
And I am afraid, afraid, afraid. 
Bully Brooks is afraid. 

Beyond New York in every car 
They keep a supply of feathers and tar; 
They daub it on with an iron bar; 
And I should be smothered ere I got far, 
And I am afraid, afraid, afraid. 
Bully Brooks is afraid. 

Those dreadful Yankees talk through the nose; 
The sound is terrible, goodness knows; 
And when I hear it a shiver goes 
From the crown of my head to the tips of my toes, 
For I am afraid, afraid, afraid. 
Bully Brooks is afraid. 

So, dearest Mr. Burlingame, 
I '11 stay at home if 't is all the same; 
And I '11 tell the world 't was a burning shame 
That we did not fight, and you 're to blame. 
For I'm afraid, afraid, afraid. 
Bully Brooks is afraid. 

Bryant was not generally a humorist, but he occasionally 
showed appreciation of fun. As examples of his humor- 
ous verse, we may mention his address to the mosquito, ^ and 
quote the following poetical letter, inviting Dr. Dewey to 
visit Roslyn in October, 1863, before the winter sets in, 
and the days arrived when, — 

^ p. 137- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Im 

" The season wears an aspect glum and glummer, 
The icy north wind an unwelcome comer, 
Frighting from garden-walks each pretty hummer. 
Whose murmuring music lulled the noons of summer; 
Roars in the woods with grummer voice and grummer, 
And thunders in the forest like a drummer. 
Dumb are the birds — they could not well be dumber; 
The winter cold, life's pitiless benumber, 
Bursts water-pipes, and makes us call the plumber. 
Now, by the fireside toils the patient thumber 
Of ancient books, and no less patient summer 
Of long accounts, while topers fill the rummer. 
The maiden thinks what furs will best become her, 
And on the stage-boards shouts the gibing mummer. 
Shut in by storms, the dull piano-strummer * 
Murders old times. There's nothing wearisomer ! " 

In 1857 Bryant went to Europe for the fifth time, not 
now for pleasure, but to benefit Mrs. Bryant's health. At 
Naples she was laid up four months, and during that pain- 
ful period he wrote his " River by Night," and " The Sick- 
bed"; also, the "Day Dream." When his wife was 
recovered he composed " The Life That Is." At Rome 
he met many famous artists, and had delightful compan- 
ionship with Hawthorne, Story, and the Brownings. 

The outbreak of the civil war inspired Bryant to the 
composition of two stirring lyrics: "Not Yet," addressed 
to those in Europe who would have been glad to see the 
Republic disrupted and Democracy overthrown. The 
other was entitled " Our Country's Call," which "helped," 
says Godwin, "to fill the ranks of the army, and to in- 
spire them with fortitude, trust, and endurance." 

While engaged so actively with his pen in defence of 



liv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

the Union, and sending out trumpet-calls of warning 
against " the greenback craze " and other dangers, he 
found time to write "Sella" and "The Little People of 
the Snow," which, says Godwin, " entice us wholly from 
the actual and the present into other worlds, which the 
water-nymphs and snow-fays inhabit, and which dazzle 
the fancy by their strange splendors, and awaken the emo- 
tions to weird and unearthly sympathies." 

Before the war was over he had begun his masterly 
blank-verse translation of Homer, parts of which he in- 
corporated in a new volume of poems published in 1863. 
How he yearned for peace may be seen in his " Return of 
the Birds " and "Autumn Walk," but he utterly opposed 
it unless by absolute victory. The new volume, entitled 
"Thirty, Poems," contained " The Rain Dream," "A 
Day Dream," "The Constellations," and "The Future 
Life," regarded as among his best work; and it was re- 
ceived with general favor. 

He was now seventy years old; and he began to " pay 
off," as he expressed it, "by anticipation," various lega- 
cies to his relatives and friends. No one knows how far 
he carried this quiet generosity. His birthday was cele- 
brated by a notable meeting at the Century Club, when 
poems and addresses were presented by the foremost in 
the land. 

Lowell's fine poem said, — 

" The voices of the hills did his obey, 

The torrents flashed and trembled in his song; 

He brought our native fields from far away. 
Or set us mid the innumerable throng 

Of dateless woods, or where we heard the calm 
Old homestead's evening's psalm," 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Iv 

and showed how "he sang of faith in things unseen," 
and how " his voice rammed home the cannon; " how 

" Pride, honor, country, throbbed through all his strain," 
and ended, — 

" And on our futile laurels he looks down, 
Himself our bravest crown." 

When the war was over, and emancipation was finally 
decided, Bryant wrote his "Death of Slavery," which 
has been called a national Hymn of Thanksgiving. 

In 1866 Bryant was overwhelmed by the death of his 
wife. In order to escape the desolation of his home he 
went abroad, and, in order to occupy his mind, he devoted 
his leisure to completing his translation of Homer. He 
managed to render about forty lines of Greek into Eng- 
lish each day. The whole was completed in December, 
1871, having occupied him for six years. The copyrights 
from this up to 1888 amounted to nearly twenty thousand 
dollars. 

During the intervals of his work on this translation he 
also composed a number of beautiful hymns, and the 
pieces entitled "A Brighter Day," " Among the Trees," 
and " May Evening." 

Soon after his " Homer " was published, Bryant made 
a journey to the Bahamas, Cuba, and Mexico, everywhere 
receiving distinguished attentions. 

On his return he made arrangements to present the 
inhabitants of Cummington with a fine library. He had a 
handsome structure built, and furnished it with over six 
thousand books, It was situated in a lot of land contain- 
ing eleven acres — a noble memorial of Cummington's 
famous son. He gave a similar institution to Roslyn. 



Ivi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Bryant was frequently in request to deliver addresses and 
speeches. Thus in two years, 1871 and 1872, he made 
more than a dozen in behalf of the Home for Incurables, 
on municipal reform, at the opening of the new Princeton 
Library, at the unveiling of the Shakspeare monument in 
Central Park, and elsewhere. But when he was invited to 
lecture in Boston he declined, alleging that while the 
people of New York were accustomed to his defects as a 
speaker and bore with him, he could not expect the same 
indulgence from Boston. He declined also to write poems 
on Bunker Hill, or for the celebration of Whittier's birth- 
day, or for the alumni of Williams College, saying, "I 
am ever ill at occasional verses. Such as it is, my vein is 
not of that sort." 

In the winter of 1872-73 he published an edition of his 
orations and speeches, and in the following spring he 
made a journey to the South, where he was most cordially 
received. About the same time he was elected an honor- 
ary member of the Russian Academy of St. Petersburg. 

His eightieth birthday was commemorated by the pres- 
entation of the famous silver vase which was Greek in 
form, typifying Bryant's interest in Greek literature, while 
American flowers twined themselves about it; the other 
decorations called to mind Bryant's most popular poems. 
The work was not finished in time, and was not presented 
until the June of the Centennial year. His birthday was 
celebrated all over the country, and when S. J. Tilden was 
elected Governor of New York, Bryant, who visited him 
in Albany, was tendered a reception by the both branches 
of the Legislature, as to the most distinguished citizen of 
the country. 

Even in what he called the December of his life, he 
still kept up his interest in literary matters. He was an 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ivii 

indefatigable reader. He undertook the responsibility for 
Mr. Sidney Howard Gay's " Popular History of the United 
States.'' He supervised the revision of his "Library 
of Poetry and Song," and undertook the editorship of a 
new edition of Shakspeare, in which he had the assistance 
of Mr. E. A. Duyckinck. He composed a hymn for the 
Centennial Exhibition, wrote "Christmas in 1875," which 
has been called "a fine Miltonic inspiration;" also the 
autobiographic lines entitled, "A Lifetime," and was 
engaged on his last great poem, "The Flood of Years." 

In 1878, when he had reached the age of eighty-four, 
he still kept up his physical and intellectual activity. He 
walked daily to and from his office, a distance of nearly 
three miles; he spoke at various public meetings, and kept 
up a vigorous correspondence with R. H. Dana, and other 
friends. His marvellous memory was still unimpaired. 
He might have been called a walking dictionary of quota- 
tions. He could recall every line of his own poetry, and 
he knew by heart hundreds of lines of English and foreign 
masterpieces. His last letter was in careful criticism of a 
poem submitted to him by R. H. Stoddard. 

He had accepted an invitation to deliver an oration at 
the unveiling of the statue to Mazzini, the Italian patriot, 
on May 29, 1878. It was against his better judgment, 
but though he began rather more feebly than usual, not 
feeling very well, he soon warmed up to it, and quite sur- 
passed himself. 

At the close of the exercises, instead of going directly to 
his own home, he accepted the invitation of General James 
Grant Wilson to walk over to his house, a considerable 
distance across the Park. On entering he fell backward 
and struck on his head, causing concussion of the brain, 
from the effects of which he died two weeks later, on the 
morning of June 12, 1878. He was buried at Roslyn. 



Iviii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Such was the prosperous and noble career of an Ameri- 
can, who, in a certain way, might be regarded as a typical 
Roman citizen. His unassailable dignity and majestic 
sternness would have well befitted a Roman senator. 
While it would be too extravagant to claim that he lived 
a faultless life, it is not too much to say that his personal 
character was beyond reproach. If anything, it seemed 
almost too lofty and unapproachable; if he failed, it was 
in his lack of general sympathies. Yet few men were 
ever more admired, reverenced, and honored. Nearly 
every learned society in the world felt proud to inscribe 
his name on their rolls. He was a member of over a hun- 
dred college societies. 

As a poet he stands somewhat alone and isolated. There 
is a certain cold and classic formality about the most of 
his work, which invites admiration rather than love. But 
this old-fashioned dignity makes his poems sure of immor- 
tality, for, like the Greek statues of the gods, they are 
instinct with genuine fervor and fine feeling. 

Nathan Haskell Dole. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Ages i 

To THE Past 14 

Thanatopsis 16 

The Lapse of Time 19 

To THE Evening Wind 21 

Forest Hymn 23 

The Old Man's Funeral 27 

The Rivulet 28 

The Prairies 31 

Earth 36 

To THE Apennines 39 

The Knight's Epitaph 41 

Seventy-Six 43 

The Living Lost 44 

The Strange Lady 46 

The Hunter's Vision 49 

Catterskill Falls 51 

The Hunter of the Prairies 55 

The Damsel of Peru 57 

A Song of Pitcairn's Island 59 

RlZPAH 61 

The Indian Girl's Lament 64 

The Arctic Lovek 66 

The Massacre at Scio 67 

lix 



Ix CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Version of a Fragment of Simonides ... 68 

The Greek Partisan 69 

Romero 70 

Monument Mountain 73 

The Murdered Traveller 78 

Song of the Greek Amazon 79 

The African Chief 81 

Song — "Soon as the Glazed and Gleaming 

Snow " 83 

An Indian Story ^ 84 

The Hunter's Serenade 87 

Song of Marion's Men 89 

Song — "Dost Thou Idly Ask to Hear" . . 91 

Love and Folly 93 

Fatima and Raduan 94 

The Death of Aliatar 96 

The Alcayde of Molina 99 

From the Spanish of Villegas loi 

The Life of the Blessed 102 

Mary Magdalen 103 

The Siesta .104 

From the Spanish of Pedro de Castro y 

Anaya 105 

The Count of Greiers — From the German, 106 

Song — From the Spanish of Iglesias . . . 109 

Sonnet — From the Portuguese of Semedo . no 

Love in the Age of Chivalry no 

The Love of God in 

The Hurricane 113 

March 114 

Spring in Town 116 

Summer Wind nS 

Autumn Woods 120 



CONTENTS. Ixi 

PAGE 

A Winter Piece 122 

"Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids!". . . . 126 

The Disinterred Warrior 126 

The Greek Boy 128 

"Upon the Mountain's Distant Head" . . 129 

Sonnet — William Tell 130 

To THE River Arve 130 

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood . 132 
" When the Firmament Quivers with Day- 
light's Young Beam" 133 

A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson . . . 134 

The West Wind 135 

To a Mosquito 137 

"I Broke the Spell that Held me Long" . 140 

The Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus . . 140 

June 144 

The Two Graves 146 

The New Moon 148 

The Gladness of Nature 150 

To THE Fringed Gentian 151 

" Innocent Child and Snow-white Flower " 152 

Sonnet — Midsummer 152 

Sonnet — October 153 

Sonnet — November 154 

A Meditation on Rhode Island Coal . . . 154 

An Indian at the Burial-place of His Fathers, 158 
Sonnet — To Cole, the Painter, Departing 

for Europe 161 

Green River 161 

To A Cloud 164 

After a Tempest 165 

The Burial-Place — A Fragment 167 



Ixii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Yellow Violet 169 

"I Cannot Forget with what Fervid De- 
votion " 1 70 

Lines on Revisiting the Country 172 

Sonnet — Mutation 173 

Hymn to the North Star 174 

The Twenty-Second of December . . . . 176 

Ode for an Agricultural Celebration. . . 176 

A Walk at Sunset 177 

Hymn of the Waldenses 180 

Song of the Stars .......... 181 

Hymn of the City 183 

"No Man Knoweth his Sepulchre" . . . 184 

"Blessed are They that Mourn" .... 185 

The Skies 186 

The Journey of Life 187 

Sonnet — To 188 

The Death of the Flowers 189 

Hymn to Death 191 

"Earth's Children cleave to Earth" . . 197 

To A Waterfowl 197 

The Battle Field 199 

The Child's Funeral 200 

The Fountain 202 

The Winds ,207 

The Green Mountain Boys ....... 210 

The Death of Schiller 211 

Life 212 

A Presentiment 214 

The Future Life 215 

The Old Man's Counsel 216 

A Serenade — From the Spanish 220 



CONTENTS. Ixiii 

PAGE 

To THE Memory of William Leggett . . 222 

An Evening Revery 223 

The Painted Cup. . 225 

A Dream 226 

The Antiquity of Freedom 228 

Notes 232 



BRYANTS POEMS. 



THE AGES. 



I. 

When to the common rest that crowns our days, 
Called in the noon of life, the good man goes. 
Or full of years, and ripe in wisdom, lays 
His silver temples in their last repose ; 
When, o'er the buds of youth, the death-wind blows. 
And blights the fairest ; when our bitterest tears 
Stream, as the eyes of those that love us close, 
We think on what they were, with many fears 
Lest goodness die with them, and leave the 
coming years. 

II. 

And therefore, to our hearts, the days gone by — 
When lived the honored sage whose death we wept, 
And the soft virtues beamed from many an eye, 
And beat in many a heart that long has slept — 
Like spots of earth where angel-feet have stepped — 
Are holy ; and high-dreaming bards have told 
Of times when worth was crowned, and faith was 

kept, 
Ere friendship grew a snare, or love waxed cold — 
Those pure and happy times — the golden days 
of old. 

I 



r BRYANT'S POEMS. 

III. 

Peace to the just man's memory, — let it grow 
Greener with years, and blossom through the flight 
Of ages ; let the mimic canvas show 
His calm benevolent features ; let the light 
Stream on his deeds of love, that shunned the sight 
Of all but heaven, and, in the book of fame. 
The glorious record of his virtues write. 
And hold it up to men, and bid them claim 
A palm like his, and catch from him the 
hallowed flame. 

IV. 

But oh, despair not of their fate who rise 
To dwell upon the earth when we withdraw ; 
Lo ! the same shaft by which the righteous dies. 
Strikes through the wretch that scoffed at mercy's 

law. 
And trode his brethren down, and felt no awe 
Of Him who will avenge them. Stainless worth, 
Such as the sternest age of virtue saw, 
Ripens, meanwhile, till time shall call it forth 
From the low modest shade, to light and bless 
the earth. 



Has Nature, in her calm, majestic march, 
Faltered with age at last ? does the bright sun 
Grow dim in heaven ? or, in their far blue arch, 
Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, 
Less brightly ? when the dew-lipped Spring 
comes on. 



THE AGES. 3 

Breathes she with airs less soft, or scents the sky 
With flowers less fair than when her reign begun ? 
Does prodigal Autumn, to our age, deny 
The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober 
eye? 

VI. 

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth 
In her fair page ; see, every season brings 
New change, to her, of everlasting youth ; 
Still the green soil, with joyous living things, 
Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings, 
And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep 
Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings 
The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep 
In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the 
deep. 

VII. 

Will then the merciful One, who stamped our race 
With his own image, and who gave them sway 
O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face. 
Now that our flourishing nations far away 
Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks 

the day, 
Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed 
His latest offspring ? will he quench the ray 
Infused by his own forming smile at first, 
And leave a work so fair all blighted and 

accursed ? 

VIII. 

Oh, no ! a thousand cheerful omens give 
Hope of yet happier days whose dawn is nigh. 



{ BRYANT'S POEMS. 

He who has tamed the elements, shall not live 
The slave of his own passions ; he whose eye 
Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky, 
And in the abyss of brightness dares to span 
The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high, 
In God's magnificent works his will shall scan — 
And love and peace shall make their paradise 
with man. 

IX. 

Sit at the feet of History — through the night 
Of years the steps of virtue she shall trace. 
And show the earlier ages, where her sight 
Can pierce the eternal shadows o'er their face ; — 
When, from the genial cradle of our race. 
Went forth the tribes of men, their pleasant lot 
To choose, where palm-groves cooled their dwell- 
ing-place. 
Or freshening rivers ran ; and there forgot 
The truth of heaven, and kneeled to gods that 
heard them not. 

X. 

Then waited not the murderer for the night, 
But smote his brother down in the bright day. 
And he who felt the wrong, and had the might, 
His own avenger, girt himself to slay ; 
Beside the path the unburied carcass lay ; 
The shepherd, by the fountains of the glen, 
Fled, while the robber swept his flock away, 
And slew his babes. The sick, untended then, 
Languished in the damp shade, and died afar 
from men. 



THE AGES. 



XI. 



But misery brought in love — in passion's strife 
Man gave his heart to mercy pleading long. 
And sought out gentle deeds to gladden life ; 
The weak, against the sons of spoil and wrong. 
Banded, and watched their hamlets, and grew 

strong. 
States rose, and, in the shadow of their might, 
The timid rested. To the reverent throng. 
Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all white, 
Gave laws, and judged their strifes, and taught 

the way of right ; 

XII. 

Till bolder spirits seized the rule, and nailed 
On men the yoke that man should never bear, 
And drove them forth to battle : Lo ! unveiled 
The scene of those stern ages ! What is there? 
A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air 
Moans with the crimson surges that entomb 
Cities and bannered armies ; forms that wear 
The kingly circlet, rise, amid the gloom. 
O'er the dark wave, and straight are swallowed 
in its womb. 

XIII. 

Those ages have no memory — but they left 
A record in the desert — columns strown 
On the waste sands, and statues fall'n and cleft. 
Heaped like a host in battle overthrown ; 
Vast ruins, where the mountain's ribs of stone 



) BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Were hewn into a city ; streets that spread 
In the dark earth, where never breath has blown 
Of heaven^'s sweet air, nor foot of man dares tread 
The long and perilous ways — the Cities of the 
Dead: 

XIV. 

And tombs of monarchs to the clouds up-piled — 
They perished — but the eternal tombs remain — 
And the black precipice, abrupt and wild, 
Pierced by long toil and hollowed to a fane ; — 
Huge piers and frowning forms of gods sustain 
The everlasting arches, dark and wide. 
Like the night heaven when clouds are black with 

rain . 
But idly skill was tasked, and strength was plied, 
All was the work of slaves to swell a despot's pride. 

XV. 

And Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign 
O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke ; 
She left the down-trod nations in disdain. 
And flew to Greece, when Liberty awoke, 
New-born, amid those beautiful vales, and broke 
Sceptre and chain with her fair youthful hands. 
As the rock shivers in the thunder-stroke. 
And lo ! in full-grown strength, an empire stands 
Of leagued and rival states, the wonder of the lands. 

XVI. 

Oh, Greece, thy flourishing cities were a spoil 
Unto each other ; thy hard hand oppressed 



THE AGES. ) 

And crushed the helpless ; thou didst make thy 

soil 
Drunk with the blood of those that loved thee best ; 
And thou didst drive, from thy unnatural breast. 
Thy just and brave to die in distant climes ; 
Earth shuddered at thy deeds, and sighed for rest 
From thine abominations ; after times 
That yet shall read thy tale, will tremble at 

thy crimes. 

XVII. 

Yet there was that within thee which has saved 
Thy glory, and redeemed thy blotted name ; 
The story of thy better deeds, engraved 
On fame's unmouldering pillar, puts to shame 
Our chiller virtue ; the high art to tame 
The whirlwind of the passions was thine own ; 
And the pure ray, that from thy bosom came, 
Far over many a land and age has shone. 
And mingles with the light that beams from 
God's own throne. 

XVIII. 

And Rome — thy sterner, younger sister, she 
Who awed the world with her imperial frown — ' 
Rome drew the spirit of her race from thee, — 
The rival of thy shame and thy renown. 
Yet her degenerate children sold the crown 
Of earth's wide kingdoms to a line of slaves ; 
Guilt reigned, and woe with guilt, and plagues came 
down. 



8 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Till the north broke its floodgates, and the waves 
Whelmed the degraded race, and weltered o'er 
their graves. 

XIX. 

Vainly that ray of brightness from above. 
That shone around the Galilean lake, 
The light of hope, the leading star of love, 
Struggled, the darkness of that day to break ; 
Even its own faithless guardians strove to slake, 
In fogs of earth, the pure immortal flame ; 
And priestly hands, for Jesus' blessed sake. 
Were red with blood, and charity became. 
In that stern war of forms, a mockery and a name. 

XX. 

They triumphed, and less bloody rites were kept 
Within the quiet of the convent cell ; 
The well-fed inmates pattered prayer, and slept. 
And sinned, and liked their easy penance well. 
Where pleasant was the spot for men to dwell. 
Amid its fair broad lands the abbey lay. 
Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell, 
And cowled and barefoot beggars swarmed the 

way. 
All in their convent weeds, of black, and white, 

and gray. 

XXI. 

Oh, sweetly the returning muses' strain 
Swelled over that famed stream, whose gentle tide 
In their bright lap the Etrurian vales detain, 
Sweet, as when winter storms have ceased to chide, 



THE AGES. 9 

And all the new-leaved woods, resounding wide, 
Send out wild hymns upon the scented air. 
Lo ! to the smiling Arno's classic side 
The emulous nations of the west repair, 
And kindle their quenched urns, and drink fresh 
spirit there. 

XXII. 

Still, Heaven deferred the hour ordained to rend 
From saintly rottenness the sacred stole ; 
And cowl and worshipped shrine could still defend 
The wretch with felon stains upon his soul ; 
And crimes were set to sale, and hard his dole 
Who could not bribe a passage to the skies ; 
And vice, beneath the mitre's kind control, 
Sinned gayly on, and grew to giant size. 
Shielded by priestly power, and watched by 
priestly eyes. 

XXIII. 

At last the earthquake came — the shock, that hurled 
To dust, in many fragments dashed and strown. 
The throne, whose roots were in another world. 
And whose far-stretching shadow awed our own. 
From many a proud monastic pile, o'erthrown. 
Fear-struck, the hooded inmates rushed and fled ; 
The web, that for a thousand years had grown 
O'er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread 
Crumbled and fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen 
thread. 

XXIV. 

The spirit of that day is still awake, 

And spreads himself, and shall not sleep again ; 



lO BRYANT'S POEMS 

But through the idle mesh of power shall break, 
Like billows o'er the Asian monarch's chain ; 
Till men are filled with him, and feel how vain, 
Instead of the pure heart and innocent hands. 
Are all the proud and pompous modes to gain 
The smile of heaven ; — till a new age expands 
Its white and holy wings above the peaceful lands. 

XXV. 

For look again on the past years ; — behold. 
Flown, like the nightmare's hideous shapes, away, 
Full many a horrible worship, that, of old. 
Held, o'er the shuddering realms, unquestioned 

sway : 
See crimes that feared not once the eye of day. 
Rooted from men, without a name or place : 
See nations blotted out from earth, to pay 
The forfeit of deep guilt ; — with glad embrace 
The fair disburdened lands welcome a nobler race. 

XXVI. 

Thus error's monstrous shapes from earth are 

driven, 
They fade, they fly — but truth survives their flight ; 
Earth has no shades to quench that beam of 

heaven ; 
Each ray, that shone, in early time, to light 
The faltering footsteps in the path of right. 
Each gleam of clearer brightness, shed to aid 
In man's maturer day his bolder sight, 
All blended, like the rainbow's radiant braid, 
Pour yet, and still shall pour, the blaze that 

cannot fade. 



THE AGES. II 



XXVII. 



Late, from this western shore, that morning chased 
The deep and ancient night, that threw its shroud 
O'er the green land of groves, the beautiful waste, 
Nurse of full streams, and lifter up of proud 
Sky-mingling mountains that overlook the cloud. 
Erewhile, where yon gay spires their brightness 

rear, 
Trees waved, and the brown hunter's shouts were 

loud 
Amid the forest ; and the bounding deer 
Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf 

yelled near. 

XXVIII : 

And where his willing waves yon bright blue bay 
Sends up, to kiss his decorated brim, 
And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay 
Young group of grassy islands born of him, 
And crowding nigh, or in the distance dim. 
Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring 
The commerce of the world ; — with tawny limb, 
And belt and beads in sunlight glistening, 
The savage urged his skiff like wild bird on the 
wing. 

XXIX. 

Then, all this youthful paradise around, 
And all the broad and boundless mainland, lay 
Cooled by the interminable wood, that frowned 
O'er mount and vale, where never summer ray 
Glanced, till the strong tornado broke his way 



12 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Through the gray giants of the sylvan wild ; 
Yet many a sheltered glade, with blossoms gay, 
Beneath the showery sky and sunshine mild. 
Within the shaggy arms of that dark forest smiled. 

XXX. 

There stood the Indian hamlet, there the lake 
Spread its blue sheet that flashed with many an 

oar. 
Where the brown otter plunged him from the 

brake, 
And the deer drank : as the light gale flew o^er, 
The twinkling maize-field rustled on the shore ; 
And while that spot, so wild, and lone, and fair, 
A look of glad and innocent beauty wore. 
And peace was on the earth and in the air, 
The warrior lit the pile, and bound his captive 

there : 

XXXI. 

Not unavenged — the foeman, from the wood, 
Beheld the deed, and when the midnight shade 
Was stillest, gorged his battle-axe with blood ; 
All died — the wailing babe — the shrieking maid — 
And in the flood of fire that scathed the glade, 
The roofs went down ; but deep the silence grew. 
When on the dewy woods the day-beam played ; 
No more the cabin smokes rose wreathed and blue. 
And ever, by their lake, lay moored the light canoe. 

XXXII. 

Look now abroad — another race has filled 
These populous borders — wide the wood recedes, 



THE AGES. 13 

And towns shoot up, and fertile realms are tilled ; 
The land is full of harvests and green meads ; 
Streams numberless, that many a fountain feeds. 
Shine, disembowered, and give to sun and breeze 
Their virgin waters ; the full region leads 
New colonies forth, that toward the western seas 
Spread, like a rapid flame among the autumnal trees. 



XXXIII. 

Here the free spirit of mankind, at length, 
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place 
A limit to the giant's unchained strength. 
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race ? 
Far, like the comet's way through infinite space, 
Stretches the long untravelled path of light 
Into the depths of ages : we may trace. 
Distant, the brightening glory of its light. 
Till the receding rays are lost to human sight. 



XXXIV. 

Europe is given a prey to sterner fates, 

And writhes in shackles ; strong the arms that 

chain 
To earth her struggling multitude of states ; 
She too is strong, and might not chafe in vain 
Against them, but shake off the vampyre train 
That batten on her blood, and break their net. 
Yes, she shall look on brighter. days, and gain 
The meed of worthier deeds ; the moment set 
To rescue and raise up, draws near — but is not yet. 



14 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

XXXV. 

But thou, my country, thou shalt never fall. 
But with thy children — thy maternal care. 
Thy lavish love, thy blessings showered on all — 
These are thy fetters — seas and stormy air 
Are the wide barrier of thy borders, where, 
Among thy gallant sons that guard thee well, 
Thou laugh'st at enemies : who shall then declare 
The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell 
How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell? 



TO THE PAST. 

Thou unrelenting Past ! 
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain. 

And fetters, sure and fast, 
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. 

Far in thy realm withdrawn 
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, 

And glorious ages gone 
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. 



Childhood, with all its mirth, 
Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground, 

And last, Man's Life on earth. 
Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound. 



TO THE PAST 15 

Thou hast my better years, 
Thou hast my earlier friends — the good — the kind, 

Yielded to thee with tears — 
The venerable form — the exalted mind. 



My spirit yearns to bring 
The lost ones back — yearns with desire intense. 

And struggles hard to wring 
Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence. 



In vain — thy gates deny 
All passage save to those who hence depart ; 

Nor to the streaming eye 
Thou giv'st them back — nor to the broken heart. 

In thy abysses hide 
Beauty and excellence unknown — to thee 

Earth's wonder and her pride 
Are gathered, as the waters to the sea ; 

Labors of good to man, 
Unpublished charity, unbroken faith, — 

Love, that midst grief began, 
And grew with years, and faltered not in death. 

Full many a mighty name 
Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered ; 

With thee are silent fame, 
Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared. 



1 6 . BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Thine for a space are they — 
Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last ! 

Thy gates shall yet give way, 
Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past ! 

All that of good and fair 
Has gone into thy womb from earliest time, 

Shall then come forth, to wear 
The glory and the beauty of its prime. 

They have not perished — no ! 
Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, 

Smiles, radiant long ago, 
And features, the great soul's apparent seat ; 

All shall come back, each tie 
Of pure affection shall be knit again ; 

Alone shall Evil die. 
And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign 

And then shall I behold 
Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung, 

And her, who, still and cold, 
Fills the next grave — the beautiful and young. 



THANATOPSIS. 

To him who in the love of nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 



THAN A TOPSIS. 1 7 

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 

Into his darker musings, with a mild 

And healing sympathy, that steals away 

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 

Over thy spirit, and sad images 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 

Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; — 

Go forth, under the open sky, and list 

To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air, — 

Comes a still voice — Yet a few days, and thee 

The all-beholding sun shall see no more 

In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground,' 

Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 

Thine individual being, shalt thou go 

To mix forever with the elements, 

To be a brother to the insensible rock 

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 

Shalt thou retire alone — nor couldst thou wish 

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 

With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings. 

The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good. 

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 



1 8 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

All in one mighty sepulchre. — The hills 

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 

Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 

The venerable woods — rivers that move 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadows green ; and, poured round 

all, 
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun. 
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death. 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings 
Of morning — and the Barcan desert pierce. 
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 
Save his own dashings — yet — the dead are there ; 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 
The flight of years began, have laid them down 
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 
So shalt thou rest — and what if thou withdraw 
Unheeded by the living — and no friend 
Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come. 
And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
Of ages glide away, the sons of men, 



THE LAPSE OF TIME. 19 

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid. 
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, — 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, 
By those, who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, that moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death. 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night. 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave. 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



THE LAPSE OF TIME. 

Lament who will, in fruitless tears, 

The speed with which our moments fly ; 

I sigh not over vanished years. 

But watch the years that hasten by. 

Look, how they come, — a mingled crowd 
Of bright and dark, but rapid days ; 

Beneath them, like a summer cloud, 
The wide world changes as I gaze. 

What ! grieve that time has brought so soon 

The sober age of manhood on? 
As idly might I weep, at noon. 

To see the blush of morning gone. 



20 BRYANT'S POEMS, 

Could I give up the hopes that glow 

In prospect, like Elysian isles ; 
And let the charming future go, 

With all her promises and smiles ? 

The future ! — cruel were the power 

Whose doom would tear thee from my heart. 

Thou sweetener of the present hour ! 
We cannot — no — we will not part. 

Oh, leave me, still, the rapid flight 

That makes the changing seasons gay. 

The grateful speed that brings the night, 
The swift and glad return of day ; 

The months that touch, with added grace, 

This little prattler at my knee, 
In whose arch eye and speaking face 

New meaning every hour I see ; 

The years, that o'er each sister land 
Shall lift the country of my birth 

And nurse her strength, till she shall stand 
The pride and pattern of the earth ; 

Till younger commonwealths, for aid, 
Shall cling about her ample robe. 

And from her frown shall shrink afraid 
The crowned oppressors of the globe. 

True — time will seam and blanch my brow — 
Well — I shall sit with aged men, 

And my good glass will tell me how 
A grizzly beard becomes me then. 



TO THE EVENING WIND. 21 

And should no foul dishonor lie 
Upon my head, when I am gray, 

Love yet shall watch my fading eye, 
And smooth the path of my decay. 

Then, haste thee. Time — ""t is kindness all 
That speeds thy winged feet so fast ; 

Thy pleasures stay not till they pall, 
And all thy pains are quickly past. 

Thou fliest and bear'st away our woes, 
And as thy shadowy train depart, 

The memory of sorrow grows 
A lighter burden on the heart. 



TO THE EVENING WIND. 

Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou 
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day. 

Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow ; 
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, 

Riding all day the wild blue waves till now, 

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their 
spray, 

And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee 

To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea ! 

Nor I alone — a thousand bosoms round 

Inhale thee in the fulness of delight ; 
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound 

Livelier, at coming of the wind of night ; 



22 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound, 

Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight. 
Go forth, into the gathering shade ; go forth, 
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth ! 

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest, 

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse 

The wide old wood from his majestic rest. 
Summoning from the innumerable boughs 

The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast : 
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows 

The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass. 

And 'twixt the overshadowing branches and the grass. 

The faint old man shall lean his silver head 
To feel thee ; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, 

And dry the moistened curls that overspread 

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep ; 

And they who stand about the sick man's bed, 
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep. 

And softly part his curtains to allow 

Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow. 

Go — but the circle of eternal change. 
Which is the life of nature, shall restore. 

With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range, 
Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more ; 

Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange. 
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore ; 

And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem 

He hears the rustling leaf and running stream. 



FOREST HYMN. 23 



FOREST HYMN. 

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man 
learned 
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave. 
And spread the roof above them, — ere he framed 
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems ; in the darkling wood. 
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down 
And offered to the Mightiest, solemn thanks 
And supplication. For his simple heart 
Might not resist the. sacred influences. 
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place. 
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven 
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound 
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once 
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed 
His spirit with the thought of boundless power 
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why 
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect 
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore 
Only among the crowd, and under roofs 
That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least. 
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood, 
Offer one hymn — thrice happy, if it find 
Acceptance in His ear. 

Father, thy hand 
Hath reared these venerable columns, thou 
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look 

down 
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose 



24 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun, 

Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, 

And shot toward heaven. The century-living crow, 

Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died 

Among their branches, till, at last, they stood, 

As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark, 

Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold 

Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults, 

These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride 

Report not. No fantastic carvings show. 

The boast of our vain race to change the form 

Of thy fair works. But thou art here — thou filPst 

The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds 

That run along the summit of these trees 

In music ; — thou art in the cooler breath, 

That from the inmost darkness of the place. 

Comes, scarcely felt ; — the barky trunks, the ground, 

The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee. 

Here is continual worship ; — nature, here. 

In the tranquillity that thou dost love. 

Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around. 

From perch to perch, the solitary bird 

Passes ; and yon clear spring, that, 'midst its herbs, 

Wells softly forth and visits the strong roots 

Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale 

Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left 

Thyself without a witness, in these shades, 

Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace 

Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak — - 

By whose immovable stem I stand and seem 

Almost annihilated — not a prince, 

In all that proud old world beyond the deep, 



FOREST HYMN. 25 

E'er wore his crown as loftily as he 

Wears the green coronal of leaves with which 

Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root 

Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare 

Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower, 

With scented breath, and look so like a smile, 

Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, 

An emanation of the indwelling Life, 

A visible token of the upholding Love, 

That are the soul of this wide universe. 

My heart is awed within me, when I think 
Of the great miracle that still goes on. 
In silence, round me — the perpetual work 
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed 
Forever. Written on thy works I read 
The lesson of thy own eternity. 
Lo ! all grow old and die — but see, again. 
How on the faltering footsteps of decay 
Youth presses — ever gay and beautiful youth 
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees 
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors 
Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost 
One of earth's charms : upon her bosom yet. 
After the flight of untold centuries, 
The freshness of her far beginning lies 
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate 
Of his arch enemy Death — yea, seats himself 
Upon the tyrant's throne — the sepulchre, 
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe 
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth 
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end. 



26 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

There have been holy men who hid themselves 
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave 
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived 
The generation born with them, nor seemed 
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks 
Around them ; — and there have been holy men 
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. 
But let me often to these solitudes 
Retire, and in thy presence reassure 
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, 
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink 
And tremble and are still. Oh, God ! when thou 
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire 
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill, 
With all the waters of the firmament, 
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods 
And drowns the villages ; when, at thy call, 
Uprises the great deep and throws himself 
Upon the continent, and overwhelms 
Its cities — who forgets not, at the sight 
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, 
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by? 
Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face 
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath 
Of the mad unchained elements to teach 
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate 
In these calm shades thy milder majesty. 
And to the beautiful order of thy works. 
Learn to conform the order of our Jives. 



THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL. 27 

THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL 

I SAW an aged man upon his bier, 

His hair was thin and white, and on his brow 
A record of the cares of many a year ; — 

Cares that were ended and forgotten now. 
And there was sadness round, and faces bowed, 
And women's tears fell fast, and children wailed 
aloud. 

Then rose another hoary man and said. 
In faltering accents, to that weeping train, 

*' Why mourn ye that our aged friend is dead? 
Ye are not sad to see the gathered grain. 

Nor when their mellow fruit the orchards cast. 

Nor when the yellow woods shake down the ripened 
mast. 

" Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled. 
His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky. 

In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled. 
Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie. 

And leaves the smile of his departure, spread 

O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain 
head. 

" Why weep ye then for him, who, having won 
The bound of man's appointed years, at last. 

Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done. 
Serenely to his final rest has passed ; 

While the soft memory of his virtues, yet, 

Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is 
set. 



28 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

** His youth was innocent ; his riper age, 

Marked with some act of goodness, every day ; 

And watched by eyes that loved him, calm, and sage, 
Faded his late declining years away. 

Cheerful he gave his being up, and went 

To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent. 

' ' That life was happy ; every day he gave 
Thanks for the fair existence that was his ; 

For a sick fancy made him not her slave, 
To mock him with her phantom miseries. 

No chronic tortures racked his aged limb. 

For luxury and sloth had nourished none for him. 

" And I am glad, that he has lived thus long, 
And glad, that he has gone to his reward ; 

Nor deem, that kindly nature did him wrong, 
Softly to disengage the vital cord. 

When his weak hand grew palsied, and his eye 

Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die." 



THE RIVULET. 

This little rill that, from the springs 
Of yonder grove, its current brings. 
Plays on the slope awhile, and then 
Goes prattling into groves again. 
Oft to its warbling waters drew 
My little feet, when life was new. 
When woods in early green were dressed, 
And from the chambers of the west 



THE RIVULET. 29 

The warmer breezes, travelling out, 
Breathed the new scent of flowers about, 
My truant steps from home would stray. 
Upon its grassy side to play, 
List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn. 
And crop the violet on its brim, 
With blooming cheek and open brow. 
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou. 

And when the days of boyhood came. 
And I had grown in love with fame, 
Duly I sought thy banks, and tried 
My first rude numbers by thy side. 
Words cannot tell how bright and gay 
The scenes of life before me lay. 
Then glorious hopes, that now to speak 
Would bring the blood into my cheek, 
Passed o'er me ; and I wrote, on high, 
A name I deemed should never die. 

Years change thee not. Upon yon hill 
The tall old maples, verdant still, 
Yet tell, in grandeur of decay, 
How swift the years have passed away, 
Since first, a child, and half afraid, 
I wandered in the forest shade. 
Thou, ever joyous rivulet. 
Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet ; 
And sporting with the sands that pave 
The windings of thy silver wave, 
And dancing to thy own wild chime, 
Thou laughest at the lapse of time. 



30 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

The same sweet sounds are in my ear 
My early childhood loved to hear ; 
As pure thy limpid waters run. 
As bright they sparkle to the sun ; 
As fresh and thick the bending ranks 
Of herbs that line thy oozy banks ; 
The violet there, in soft May dew, 
Comes up, as modest and as blue ; 
As green amid thy current's stress, 
Floats the scarce-rooted watercress ; 
And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen, 
Still chirps as merrily as then. 

Thou changest not — but I am changed, 
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged ; 
And the grave stranger, come to see 
The play-place of his infancy. 
Has scarce a single trace of him 
Who sported once upon thy brim. 
The visions of my youth are past — 
Too bright, too beautiful to last. 
I Ve tried the world — it wears no more 
The coloring of romance it wore. 
Yet well has Nature kept the truth 
She promised to my earliest youth. 
The radiant beauty, shed abroad 
On all the glorious works of God, 
Shows freshly, to my sobered eye. 
Each charm it wore in days gone by. 

A few brief years shall pass away, 
And I, all trembling, weak, and gray, 



THE PRAIRIES. 31 

Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold 
My ashes in the embracing mould 
(If haply the dark will of fate 
Indulge my life so long a date) , 
May come for the last time to look 
Upon my childhood^s favorite brook. 
Then dimly on my eye shall gleam 
The sparkle of thy dancing stream ; 
And faintly on my ear shall fall 
Thy prattling current's merry call ; 
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright 
As when thou met'st my infant sight. 

And I shall sleep — and on thy side, 
As ages after ages glide, 
Children their early sports shall try. 
And pass to hoary age and die. 
But thou, unchanged from year to year, 
Gayly shalt play and glitter here ; 
Amid young flowers and tender grass 
Thy endless infancy shalt pass ; 
And, singing down thy narrow glen, 
Shalt mock the fading race of men. 



THE PRAIRIES. 



These are the Gardens of the Desert, these 
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful. 
For which the speech of England has no name- 
The Prairies. I behold them for the first, 



32 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

And my heart swells, while the dilated sight 

Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo ! they stretch 

In airy undulations, far away. 

As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell. 

Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed. 

And motionless forever. — Motionless ? — 

No — they are all unchained again. The clouds 

Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath, 

The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye ; 

Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase 

The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South! 

Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers, 

And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high. 

Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not — ye have 

played 
Among the palms of Mexico and vines 
Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks 
That from the fountains of Sonora glide 
Into the calm Pacific — have ye fanned 
A nobler or a lovelier scene than this? 
Man hath no part in all this glorious work : 
The hand that built the firmament hath heaved 
And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown 

their slopes 
With herbage, planted them with island groves. 
And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor 
For this magnificent temple of the sky — 
With flowers whose glory and whose multitude 
Rival the constellations ! The great heavens 
Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love, — 
A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue. 
Than that which bends above the eastern hills. 



THE PRAIRIES. 33 

As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed, 

Among the high rank grass that sweeps his sides, 

The hollow beating of his footstep seems 

A sacrilegious sound. I think of those 

Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here — 

The dead of other days ? — and did the dust 

Of these fair solitudes once stir with life 

And burn with passion ? Let the mighty mounds 

That overlook the rivers, or that rise 

In the dim forest crowded with old oaks, 

Answer. A race, that long has passed away, 

Built them ; — a disciplined and populous race 

Heaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the 

Greek 
Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms 
Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock 
The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields 
Nourished their harvests, here their herds were fed. 
When haply by their stalls the bison lowed. 
And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke. 
All day this desert murmured with their toils. 
Till twilight blushed and lovers walked, and wooed 
In a forgotten language, and old tunes. 
From instruments of unremembered form. 
Gave the soft winds a voice. The red man came — 
The roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce. 
And the mound-builders vanished from the earth. 
The solitude of centuries untold 
Has settled where they dwelt. The prairie wolf 
Hunts in their meadows, and his fresh-dug den 
Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the ground 
Where stood their swarming cities. All is gone — 



34 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

All — save the piles of earth that hold their bones — 
The platforms where they worshipped unknown 

gods — 
The barriers which they builded from the soil 
To keep the foe at bay — till o'er the walls 
The wild beleaguers broke, and, one by one, 
The strongholds of the plain were forced and heaped 
With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood 
Flocked to those vast uncovered sepulchres. 
And sat, unscared and silent, at their feast. 
Haply some solitary fugitive. 
Lurking in marsh and forest, till the sense 
Of desolation and of fear became 
Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die. 
Man's better nature triumphed. Kindly words 
Welcomed and soothed him ; the rude conquerors 
Seated the captive with their chiefs ; he chose 
A bride among their maidens, and at length 
Seemed to forget, — yet ne'er forgot, — the wife 
Of his first love, and her sweet little ones 
Butchered amid their shrieks, with all his race. 
Thus change the forms of being. Thus arise 
Races of living things, glorious in strength, 
And perish, as the quickening breath of God 
Fills them, or is withdrawn. The red man too — 
Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long, 
And, nearer to the Rocky Mountains, sought 
A wider hunting-ground. The beaver builds 
No longer by these streams, but far away, 
On waters whose blue surface ne'er gave back 
The white man's face — among Missouri's springs, 
And pools whose issues swell the Oregon, 



THE PRAIRIES. 35 

He rears his little Venice. In these plains 
The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leagues 
Beyond remotest smoke of hunter^s camp, 
Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shake 
The earth with thundering steps — yet here I meet 
His ancient footprints stamped beside the pool. 

Still this great solitude is quick with life. 
Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers 
They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds, 
And birds, that scarce have learned the fear of man, 
Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground, 
Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer 
Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee, 
A more adventurous colonist than man, 
With whom he came across the eastern deep, 
Fills the savannas with his murmurings. 
And hides his sweets, as in the golden age, 
Within the hollow oak. I listen long 
To his domestic hum, and think I hear 
The sound of that advancing multitude 
Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground 
Comes up the laugh of children,^ the soft voice 
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn 
Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds 
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain 
Over the dark-brown furrows. All at once 
A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream, 
And I am in the wilderness alone. 



36 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



EARTH. 

A MIDNIGHT black with clouds is in the sky ; 
I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight 
Of its vast brooding shadow. All in vain 
Turns the tired eye in search of form ; no star 
Pierces the pitchy veil ; no ruddy blaze, 
From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth, 
Tinges the flowering summits of the grass. 
No sound of life is heard, no village hum, 
Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path. 
Nor rush of wing, while, on the breast of Earth, 
I lie and listen to her mighty voice : 
A voice of many tones — sent up from streams 
That wander through the gloom, from woods unseen. 
Swayed by the sweeping of the tides of air. 
From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day, 
And hollows of the great invisible hills. 
And sands that edge the ocean, stretching far 
Into the night — a melancholy sound ! 

Oh Earth ! dost thou too sorrow for the past 
Like man thy offspring ? Do I hear thee mourn 
Thy childhood's unreturning hours, thy springs 
Gone with their genial airs and melodies, 
The gentle generations of thy flowers. 
And thy majestic groves of olden time, 
Perished with all their dwellers? Dost thou wail 
For that fair age of which the poets tell. 
Ere the rude winds grew keen with frost, or fire 
Fell with the rains, or spouted from the hills, 



. EARTH. 37 

To blast thy greenness, while the virgin night 

Was guiltless and salubrious as the day? 

Or haply dost thou grieve for those that die — 

For living things that trod awhile thy face, 

The love of thee and heaven — and now they sleep 

Mixed with the shapeless dust on which thy herds 

Trample and graze ? I too must grieve with thee, 

O'er loved ones lost — their graves are far away 

Upon thy mountains, yet, while I recline. 

Alone, in darkness, on thy naked soil, 

The mighty nourisher and burial-place 

Of man, I feel that I embrace their dust. 

Ha ! how the murmur deepens ! I perceive 
And tremble at its dreadful import. Earth 
Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong, 
And Heaven is listening. The forgotten graves 
Of the heart-broken utter forth their plaint. 
The dust of her who loved and was betrayed, 
And him who died neglected in his age ; 
The sepulchres of those who for mankind 
Labored, and earned the recompense of scorn ; 
Ashes of martyrs for the truth, and bones 
Of those who, in the strife for liberty. 
Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs, 
Their names to infamy, all find a voice. 
The nook in which the captive, overtoiled. 
Lay down to rest at last, and that which holds 
Childhood^s sweet blossoms, crushed by cruel hands. 
Send up a plaintive sound. From battle-fields. 
Where heroes madly drave and dashed their hosts 
Against each other, rises up a noise. 



38 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

As if the arm^d multitudes of dead 

Stirred in their heavy skimber. Mournful tones 

Come from the green abysses of the sea — 

A story of the crimes the guilty sought 

To hide beneath its waves. The glens, the groves, 

Paths in the thicket, pools of running brook, 

And banks and depths of lake, and streets and lanes 

Of cities, now that living sounds are hushed. 

Murmur of guilty force and treachery. 

Here, where I rest, the vales of Italy 
Are round me, populous from early time, 
And field of the tremendous warfare waged 
'Twixt good and evil. Who, alas, shall dare 
Interpret to man^s ear the mingled voice 
From all her ways and walls, and streets and streams. 
And hills and fruitful fields ? Old dungeons breathe 
Of horrors veiled from history ; the stones 
Of mouldering amphitheatres, where flowed 
The life-blood of the warrior slave, cry out. 
The fanes of old religions, the proud piles 
Reared with the spoil of empires, yea, the hearths 
Of cities dug from their volcanic graves. 
Report of human suffering and shame 
And folly. Even the common dust, among 
The springing corn and vine-rows, witnesses 
To ages of oppression. Ah, I hear 
A murmur of confused languages, 
The utterance of nations now no more. 
Driven out by mightier, as the days of heaven 
Chase one another from the sky. The blood 
Of freemen shed by freemen, till strange lords 



TO THE APENNINES. 39 

Came in the hour of weakness, and made fast 
The yoke that yet is worn, appeals to Heaven. 

What then shall cleanse thy bosom, gentle Earth, 
From all its painful memories of guilt ? 
The whelming flood, or the renewing fire, 
Or the slow change of time? that so, at last. 
The horrid tale of perjury and strife, 
Murder and spoil, which men call history. 
May seem a fable, like the inventions told 
By poets of the gods of Greece. Oh thou 
Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep, 
Among the sources of thy glorious streams, 
My native Land of Groves ! a newer page 
In the great record of the world is thine. 
Shall it be fairer? Fear, and friendly Hope, 
And Envy, watch the issue, while the lines. 
By which thou shalt be judged, are written down. 



TO THE APENNINES. 

Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines ! 

In the soft light of these serenest skies ; 
From the broad highland region, black with pines, 

Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise. 
Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold 
In rosy flushes on the virgin gold. 

There, rooted to the aerial shelves that wear 
The glory of a brighter world, might spring 



40 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Sweet flowers of heaven to scent the unbreathed air, 
And heaven's fleet messengers might rest the wing, 
To view the fair earth in its summer sleep, 
Silent, and cradled by the glimmering deep. 

Below you lie men's sepulchres, the old 
Etrurian tombs, the graves of yesterday ; 

The herd's white bones lie mixed with human 
mould — 
Yet up the radiant steeps that I survey 

Death never climbed, nor life's soft breath, with pain, 

Was yielded to the elements again. 

Ages of war have filled these plains with fear ; 

How oft the hind has started at the clash 
Of spears, and yell of meeting armies here, 

Or seen the lightning of the battle flash 
From clouds, that rising with the thunder's sound, 
Hung like an earth-born tempest o'er the ground. 

Ah me ! what arm^d nations — Asian horde, 
And Libyan host — the Scythian and the Gaul, 

Have swept your base and through your passes poured, 
Like ocean-tides uprising at the call 

Of tyrant winds — against your rocky side 

The bloody billows dashed, and howled, and died. 

How crashed the towers before beleaguering foes, 
Sacked cities smoked and realms were rent in twain ; 

And commonwealths against their rivals rose, 

Trode out their lives and earned the curse of Cain ! 

While in the noiseless air and light that flowed 

Round your fair brows, eternal Peace abode. 



THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH. 41 

Here pealed the impious hymn, and altar flames 
Rose to false gods, a dream-begotten throng, 

Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names ; 
While, as the unheeding ages passed along, 

Ye, from your station in the middle skies, 

Proclaimed the essential Goodness, strong and wise. 

In you the heart that sighs for freedom seeks 
Her image ; there the winds no barrier know, 

Clouds come and rest and leave your fairy peaks ; 
While even the immaterial Mind, below, 

And Thought, her winged oiTspring, chained by 
power. 

Pine silently for the redeeming hour. 



THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH. 

This is the church which Pisa, great and free. 
Reared to St. Catharine. How the time-stained walls, 
That earthquakes shook not from their poise, appear 
To shiver in the deep and voluble tones 
Rolled from the organ ! Underneath my feet 
There lies the lid of a sepulchral vault. 
The image of an armed knight is graven 
Upon it, clad in perfect panoply — 
Cuishes, and greaves, and cuirass, with barred helm, 
Gauntleted hand, and sword, and blazoned shield. 
Around, in Gothic characters, worn dim 
By feet of worshippers, are traced his name, 
And birth, and death, and words of eulogy. 



42 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Why should I pore upon them? This old tomb, 

This effigy, the strange disused form 

Of this inscription, eloquently show 

His history. Let me. clothe in fitting words 

The thoughts they breathe, and frame his epitaph. 

" He whose forgotten dust for centuries 
Has lain beneath this stone, was one in whom 
Adventure, and endurance, and emprise 
Exalted the mind's faculties and strung 
The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight, 
Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose, 
And bountiful, and cruel, and devout, 
And quick to draw the sword in private feud. 
He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed 
The saints as fervently on bended knees 
As ever shaven cenobite. He loved 
As fiercely as he fought. He would have borne 
The maid that pleased him from her bower by night, 
To his hill-castle, as the eagle bears 
His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks 
On his pursuers. He aspired to see 
His native Pisa queen and arbitress 
Of cities ; earnestly for her he raised 
His voice in council, and affronted death 
In battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck, 
And brought the captured flag of Genoa back, 
Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay 
The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen. 
He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke. 
But would have joined the exiles, that withdrew 
Forever, when the Florentine broke in 



SEVENTY-SIX. 43 

The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts 
For trophies — but he died before that day. 

" He Hved, the impersonation of an age 
That never shall return. His soul of fire 
Was kindled by the breath of the rude time 
He lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds, 
Shuddering at blood ; the effeminate cavalier, 
Turning from the reproaches of the past, 
And from the hopeless future, gives to ease, 
And love, and music, his inglorious life." 



SEVENTY-SIX. 



What heroes from the v^oodland sprung. 
When, through the fresh awakened land, 

The thrilling cry of freedom rung, 

And to the work of warfare strung 
The yeoman's iron hand ! 

Hills flung the cry to hills around, 

And ocean-mart replied to mart, 
And streams, whose springs were yet unfound, 
Pealed far away the startling sound 

Into the forest's heart. 

Then marched the brave from rocky steep. 

From mountain river swift and cold ; 
The borders of the stormy deep. 
The vales where gathered waters sleep. 
Sent up the strong and bold, — 



44 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

As if the very earth again 

Grew quick with God's creating breath. 
And, from the sods of grove and glen, 
Rose ranks of lion-hearted men 

To battle to the death. 

The wife, whose babe first smiled that day. 

The fair fond bride of yester eve. 
And aged sire and matron gray, 
Saw the loved warriors haste away, 
And deemed it sin to grieve. 

Already had the strife begun ; 

Already blood on Concord's plain 
Along the springing grass had run, 
And blood had flowed at Lexington, 

Like brooks of April rain. 

That death-stain on the vernal sward 
Hallowed to freedom all the shore ; 

In fragments fell the yoke abhorred — 

The footstep of a foreign lord 
Profaned the soil no more. 



THE LIVING LOST. 

Matron ! the children of whose love. 
Each to his grave, in youth have passed, 

And now the mould is heaped above 
The dearest and the last ! 



THE LIVING LOST. 4$ 

Bride ! who dost wear the widow's veil 
Before the wedding flowers are pale ! 
Ye deem the human heart endures 
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours. 

Yet there are pangs of keener woe, 

Of which the sufferers never speak, 
Nor to the world's cold pity show 
The tears that scald the cheek. 
Wrung from their eyelids by the shame 
And guilt of those they shrink to name, 
Whom once they loved, with cheerful will, 
And love, though fallen and branded, still. 

Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead, 

Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve ; 

And graceful are the tears ye shed. 
And honored ye who grieve. 

The praise of those who sleep in earth, 

The pleasant memory of their worth, 

The hope to meet when life is past, 

Shall heal the tortured mind at last. 

But ye, who for the living lost 

That agony in secret bear. 
Who shall with soothing words accost 

The strength of your despair? 
Grief for your sake is scorn for them 
Whom ye lament and all condemn ; 
And o'er the world of spirits lies 
A gloom from which ye turn your eyes. 



46 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



THE STRANGE LADY, 

The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are 
darting by, 

As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the 
cool clear sky ; 

Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rus- 
tling sound. 

An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the 
ground. 

A lovely woman from the wood comes suddenly in 
sight ; 

Her merry eye is full and black, her cheek is brown 
and bright ; 

She wears a tunic of the blue, her belt with beads is 
strung. 

And yet she speaks in gentle tones, and in the Eng- 
lish tongue. 

" It was an idle bolt I sent, against the villain crow ; 

Fair sir, I fear it harmed thy hand ; beshrew my err- 
ing bow ! " 

"Ah! would that bolt had not been spent, then, 
lady, might I wear 

A lasting token on my hand of one so passing fair ! " 

" Thou art a flatterer like the rest, but wouldst thou 
take with me 

A day of hunting in the wilds, beneath the green- 
wood tree, 



THE STRANGE LADY. 47 

I know where most the pheasants feed, and where 

the red-deer herd, 
And thou shouldst chase the nobler game, and I 

bring down the bird." 

Now Albert in her quiver lays the arrow in its place, 
And wonders as he gazes on the beauty of her face : 
"Those hunting-grounds are far away, and, lady, 

't were not meet 
That night, amid the wilderness, should overtake thy 

feet." 

" Heed not the night, a summer lodge amid the wild 

is mine, 
'T is shadowed by the tulip-tree, 't is mantled by the 

vine ; 
The wild plum sheds its yellow fruit from fragrant 

thickets nigh. 
And flowery prairies from the door stretch till they 

meet the sky. 

" There in the boughs that hide the roof the mock- 
bird sits and sings. 

And there the hang-bird's brood within its little ham- 
mock swings ; 

A pebbly brook, where rustling winds among the 
hopples sweep, 

Shall lull thee till the morning sun looks in upon thy 
sleep." 

Away, into the forest depths by pleasant paths they 
He with his rifle on his arm, the lady with her bow, 



48 BRYANT'S POEMS, , 

Where cornels arch their cool dark boughs o'er beds 

of wintergreen, 
And never at his father's door again was Albert seen. 

That night upon the woods came down a furious hur- 
ricane, 

With howl of winds and roar of streams and beating 
of the rain ; 

The mighty thunder broke and drowned the noises 
in its crash ; 

The old trees seemed to fight like fiends beneath the 
lightning flash. 

Next day, within a mossy glen, 'mid mouldering 

trunks were found 
The fragments of a human form, upon the bloody 

ground ; 
White bones from which the flesh was torn, and locks 

of glossy hair ; 
They laid them in the place of graves, yet wist not 

whose they were. 

And whether famished evening wolves had mangled 
Albert so. 

Or that strange dame so gay and fair were some mys- 
terious foe, 

Or whether to that forest lodge, beyond the moun- 
tains blue, 

He went to dwell with her, the friends who mourned 
him never knew. 



THE HUNTER'S VISION. 49 



THE HUNTER'S VISION. 

Upon a rock that, high, and sheer, 
Rose from the mountain's breast, 

A weary hunter of the deer 
Had sat him down to rest, 

And bared, to the soft summer air. 

His hot red brow and sweaty hair. 

All dim in haze the mountains lay, 
With dimmer vales between ; 

And rivers glimmered on their way, 
By forests, faintly seen ; 

While ever rose a murmuring sound. 

From brooks below and bees around. 

He listened, till he seemed to hear 

A strain, so soft and low. 
That whether in the mind or ear 

The listener scarce might know. 
With such a tone, so sweet and mild, 
The watching mother lulls her child. 

" Thou weary huntsman," thus it said, 
" Thou faint with toil and heat, 

The pleasant land of rest is spread 
Before thy very feet. 

And those whom thou wouldst gladly see 

Are waiting there to welcome thee." 

He looked, and 'twixt the earth and sky, 
Amid the noontide haze. 



5© BRYANT'S POEMS, 

A shadowy region met his eye, 
And grew beneath his gaze, 
As if the vapors of the air 
Had gathered into shapes so fair. 

Groves freshened as he looked, and flowers 
Showed bright on rocky bank. 

And fountains welled beneath the bowers, 
Where deer and pheasant drank. 

He saw the glittering streams, he heard 

The rustling bough and twittering bird. 

And friends — the dead — in boyhood dear, 
There lived and walked again. 

And there was one who many a year 
Within her grave had lain, 

A fair young girl, the hamlefs pride — 

His heart was breaking when she died : 



"is 



Bounding, as was her wont, she came 

Right toward his resting-place. 
And stretched her hand and called his name 

With that sweet smiling face. 
Forward, with fixed and eager eyes. 
The hunter leaned in act to rise : 

Forward he leaned, and headlong down 

Plunged from that craggy wall. 
He saw the rocks, steep, stern, and brown. 

An instant in his fall ; 
A frightful instant — and no more. 
The dream and life at once were o'er. 




~^,IP 



The Hunter's Vision. 



CATTERSKILL FALLS. 51 



CATTERSKILL FALLS. 

Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps, 
From cliffs where the wood-flower clings ; 

All summer he moistens his verdant steeps 

With the sweet light spray of the mountain springs ; 

And he shakes the woods on the mountain side, 

When they drip with the rains of autumn tide. 

But when, in the forest bare and old, 

The blast of December calls. 
He builds, in the starlight clear and cold, 

A palace of ice where his torrent falls. 
With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair, 
And pillars blue as the summer air. 

For whom are those glorious chambers wrought. 

In the cold and cloudless night? 
Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought 

In forms so lovely and hues so bright ? 
Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell 
Of this wild stream and its rocky dell. 

T was hither a youth of dreamy mood, 

A hundred winters ago, 
Had wandered over the mighty wood. 

When the panther's track was fresh on the snow. 
And keen were the winds that came to stir 
The long dark boughs of the hemlock fir. 

Too gentle of mien he seemed and fair, 
For a child of those rugged steeps ; 



52 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

His home lay low in the valley where 

The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps ; 
But he wore the hunter's frock that day, 
And a slender gun on his shoulder lay. 

And here he paused, and against the trunk 

Of a tall gray linden leant, 
When the broad clear orb of the sun had sunk 

From his path in the frosty firmament, 
And over the round dark edge of the hill 
A cold green light was quivering still. 

And the crescent moon, high over the green, 

From a sky of crimson shone, 
On that icy palace, whose towers were seen 

To sparkle as if with stars of their own ; 
While the water fell, with a hollow sound, 
'Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around. 

Is that a being of life, that moves 
Where the crystal battlements rise ? 

A maiden, watching the moon she loves, 
At the twilight hour, with pensive eyes? 

Was that a garment which seemed to gleam 

Betwixt the eye and the falling stream? 

'T is only the torrent, tumbling o'er, 
In the midst of those glassy walls. 

Gushing, and plunging, and beating the floor 
Of the rocky basin in which it falls. 

'T is only the torrent — but why that start? 

Why gazes the youth with a throbbing heart? 



CATTERSKILL FALLS. 53 

He thinks no more of his home afar. 

Where his sire and sister wait. 
He heeds no longer how star after star 
• Looks forth on the night, as the hour grows late. 
He heeds not the snow-wreaths, lifted and cast. 
From a thousand boughs, by the rising blast. 

His thoughts are alone of those who dwell 

In the halls of frost and snow. 
Who pass where the crystal domes upswell 

From the alabaster floors below, 
Where the frost-trees bourgeon with leaf and spray, 
And frost-gems scatter a silvery day. 

" And oh that those glorious haunts were mine ! " 

He speaks, and throughout the glen 
Thin shadows swim in the faint moonshine. 

And take a ghastly likeness of men, 
As if the slain by the wintry storms 
Came forth to the air in their earthly forms. 

There pass the chasers of seal and whale, 

With their weapons quaint and grim, 
And bands of warriors in glimmering mail, 

And herdsmen and hunters huge of limb. 
There are naked arms, with bow and spear, 
And furry gauntlets the carbine rear. 

There are mothers — and oh how sadly their eyes 

On their children's white brows rest ; 
There are youthful lovers — the maiden lies 

In a seeming sleep, on the chosen breast ; 



54 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

There are fair wan women with moonstruck air, 
The snow stars flecking their long loose hair. 



They eye him not as they pass along, 

But his hair stands up with dread, 
When he feels that he moves with that phantom 
throng. 

Till those icy turrets are over his head, 
And the torrent's roar as they enter seems 
Like a drowsy murmur heard in dreams. 

The glittering threshold is scarcely passed, 
When there gathers and wraps him round 

A thick white twilight, sullen and vast. 
In which there is neither form nor sound ; 

The phantoms, the glory, vanish all, 

With the dying voice of the waterfall. 

Slow passes the darkness of that trance. 

And the youth now faintly sees 
Huge shadows and gushes of light that dance 

On a rugged ceiling of unhewn trees. 
And walls where the skins of beasts are hung, 
And rifles glitter on antlers strung. 

On a couch of shaggy skins he lies ; 

As he strives to raise his head, 
Hard-featured woodmen, with kindly eyes, 

Come round him and smooth his furry bed. 
And bid him rest, for the evening star 
Is scarcely set, and the day is far. 



THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES. 55 

They had found at eve the dreaming one 

By the base of that icy steep, 
When over his stiffening limbs begun 

The deadly slumber of frost to creep, 
And they cherished the pale and breathless form, 
Till the stasfnant blood ran free and warm. 



THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES. 

Ay this is freedom ! — these pure skies 

Were never stained with village smoke : 
The fragrant wind, that through them flies, 

Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke. 
Here, with my rifle and my steed, 

And her who left the world for me, 
I plant me, where the red deer feed 

In the green desert — and am free. 

For here the fair savannas know 

No barriers in the bloomy grass ; 
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow. 

Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass. 
In pastures, measureless as air, 

The bison is my noble game ; 
The bounding elk, whose antlers tear 

The branches, falls before my aim. 

Mine are the river-fowl that scream 
From the long stripe of waving sedge ; 

The bear, that marks my weapon's gleam, 
Hides vainly in the forest's edge ; 



56 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

In vain the she-wolf stands at bay ; 

The brinded catamount, that lies 
High in the boughs to watch his prey, 

Even in the act of springing, dies. 

With what free growth the elm and plane 

Fling their huge arms across my way, 
Gray, old, and cumbered with a train 

Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! 
Free stray the lucid streams, and find 

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades ; 
Free spring the flowers that scent the wind 

Where never scythe has swept the glades. 

Alone the Fire, when frostwinds sere 

The heavy herbage of the ground, 
Gathers his annual harvest here. 

With roaring like the battle's sound. 
And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, 

And smoke-streams gushing up the sky : 
I meet the flames with flames again, 

And at my door they cower and die. 

Here, from dim woods, the aged past 

Speaks solemnly ; and I behold 
The boundless future in the vast 

And lonely river, seaward rolled. 
Who feeds its founts with rain and dew.? 

Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass. 
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue 

Bright clusters tempt me as I pass ? 



THE DAMSEL OF PERU. 57 

Broad are these streams — my steed obeys, 

Plunges, and bears me through the tide. 
Wide are these woods — I thread the maze 

Of giant stems, nor ask a guide. 
I hunt, till day's last glimmer dies 

O'er woody vale and grassy height ; 
And kind the voice and glad the eyes. 

That welcome my return at night. 



THE DAMSEL OF PERU. 

WHERE olive leaves were twinkHng in every wind 

that blew, 
There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of 

Peru. 
Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the 

air, 
Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy 

hair ; 
And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady 

nook, 
As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of 

hidden brook. 

'T is a song of love and valor, in the noble Spanish 

tongue. 
That once upon the sunny plains of old Castile was 

sung; 
When, from their mountain holds, on the Moorish 

rout below, 



58 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and swept 

away the foe. 
Awhile that melody is still, and then breaks forth 

anew 
A wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom and Peru. 

A white hand parts the branches, a lovely face looks 

forth, 
And bright dark eyes gaze steadfastly and sadly 

toward the north. 
Thou look'st in vain, sweet maiden, the sharpest 

sight would fail, 
To spy a sign of human life abroad in all the vale ; 
For the noon is coming on, and the sunbeams fiercely 

beat, 
And the silent hills and forest-tops seem reeling in 

the heat. 

That white hand is withdrawn, that fair sad face is 

gone. 
But the music of that silver voice is flowing sweetly 

on. 
Not as of late, in cheerful tones, but mournfully and 

low, — 
A ballad of a tender maid heart-broken long ago, 
Of him who died in battle, the youthful and the brave. 
And her who died of sorrow, upon his early grave. 

But see, along that mountain's slope, a fiery horse- 
man ride ; 

Mark his torn plume, his tarnished belt, the sabre at 
his side. 



A SONG OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND. 59 

His spurs are buried rowel deep, he rides with loos- 
ened rein, 

There 's blood upon his charger's flank and foam upon 
the mane, 

He speeds him toward the olive-grove, along that 
shaded hill, — 

God shield the helpless maiden there, if he should 
mean her ill ! 

And suddenly that song has ceased, and suddenly I 

hear 
A shriek sent up amid the shade, a shriek — but not 

of fear. 
For tender accents follow, and tenderer pauses speak 
The overflow of gladness, when words are all too 

weak : 
" I lay my good sword at thy feet, for now Peru is 

free, 
And I am come to dwell beside the olive-grove with 

thee." 



A SONG OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND. 

Come, take our boy, and we will go 

Before our cabin door ; 
The winds shall bring us, as they blow, 

The murmurs of the shore ; 
And we will kiss his young blue eyes, 
And I will sing him, as he lies, 

Songs that were made of yore : 
I '11 sing, in his delighted ear. 
The island lays thou lov'st to hear. 



6o BRYANT'S POEMS. 

And thou, while stammering I repeat, 

Thy country's tongue shalt teach ; 
'T is not so soft, but far more sweet, 

Than my own native speech : 
For thou no other tongue didst know, 
When, scarcely twenty moons ago. 

Upon Tahete's beach, 
Thou cam'st to woo me to be thine, 
With many a speaking look and sign. 

I knew thy meaning — thou didst praise 

My eyes, my locks of jet ; 
Ah ! well for me they won thy gaze, — 

But thine were fairer yet ! 
I 'm glad to see my infant wear 
Thy soft blue eyes and sunny hair. 

And when my sight is met 
By his white brow and blooming cheek, 
I feel a joy I cannot speak. 

Come talk of Europe's maids with me, 
Whose necks and cheeks, they tell, 
Outshine the beauty of the sea. 

White foam and crimson shell. 
I '11 shape like theirs my simple dress, 
And bind like them each jetty tress, 

A sight to please thee well : 
And for my dusky brow will braid 
A bonnet like an English maid. 

Come, for the soft low sunlight calls, 
We lose the pleasant hours ; 



RIZPAH. 6 1 

T is lovelier than these cottage walls, — 

That seat among the flowers. 
And I will learn of thee a prayer. 
To Him, who gave a home so fair, 

A lot so blessed as ours — 
The God who made, for thee and me, 
This sweet lone isle amid the sea. 



RIZPAH. 



And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and 
they hanged them in the hill before the Lord ; and they fell all 
seven together, and were put to death in the days of the harvest, 
in the first days, in the beginning of barley-harvest. 

And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread 
it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the 
water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the 
birds of the air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the 
field by night. — 2 Sam. xxi. 10. 

Hear what the desolate Rizpah said, 
As on Gibeah's rocks she watched the dead. 
The sons of Michal before her lay, 
And her own fair children dearer than they : 
By a death of shame they all had died. 
And were stretched on the bare rock, side by side. 
And Rizpah, once the loveliest of all 
That bloomed and smiled in the court of Saul, 
All wasted with watching and famine now. 
And scorched by the sun her haggard brow. 
Sat, mournfully guarding their corpses there. 
And murmured a strange and solemn air ; 



62 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

The low, heart-broken, and wailing strain 
Of a mother that mourns her children slain. 

" I have made the crags my home, and spread 
On their desert backs my sackcloth bed ; 
I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks, 
And drunk the midnight dew in my locks ; 
I have wept till I could not weep, and the pain 
Of my burning eyeballs went to my brain. 
Seven blackened corpses before me lie, 
In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky. 
I have watched them through the burning day. 
And driven the vulture and raven away ; 
And the cormorant wheeled in circles round. 
Yet feared to alight on the guarded ground. 
And, when the shadows of twilight came, 
I have seen the hyena's eyes of flame. 
And heard at my side his stealthy tread. 
But aye at my shout the savage fled : 
And I threw the lighted brand, to fright 
The jackal and wolf that yelled in the night. 

" Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons . 
By the hands of wicked and cruel ones ; 
Ye fell, in your fresh and blooming prime, 
All innocent, for your father's crime. 
He sinned — but he paid the price of his guilt 
When his blood by a nameless hand was spilt ; 
When he strove with the heathen host in vain, 
And fell with the flower of his people slain. 
And the sceptre his children's hands should sway 
From his injured lineage passed away. 



RIZPAH. 63 

** But I hoped that the cottage roof would be 
A safe retreat for my sons and me ; 
And that while they ripened to manhood fast, 
They should wean my thoughts from the woes of 

the past. 
And my bosom swelled with a mother's pride. 
As they stood in their beauty and strength by my 

side. 
Tall like their sire, with the princely grace 
Of his stately form, and the bloom of his face. 

" Oh, what an hour for a mother's heart, 
When the pitiless rufifians tore us apart ! 
When I clasped their knees and wept and prayed, 
And struggled and shrieked to Heaven for aid. 
And clung to my sons with desperate strength, 
Till the murderers loosed my hold at length, 
And bore me breathless and faint aside. 
In their iron arms, while my children died. 
They died — and the mother that gave them birth 
Is forbid to cover their bones with earth. 

" The barley-harvest was nodding white, 
When my children died on the rocky height. 
And the reapers were singing on hill and plain. 
When I came to my task of sorrow and pain. 
But now the season of rain is nigh. 
The sun is dim in the thickening sky, 
And the clouds in sullen darkness rest 
Where he hides his light at the doors of the west. 
I hear the howl of the wind that brings 
The long drear storm on its heavy wings ; 



64 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

But the howling wind, and the driving rain 
Will beat on my houseless head in vain : 
I shall stay, from my murdered sons to scare 
The beasts of the desert, and fowls of air." 



THE INDIAN GIRDS LAMENT, 

An Indian girl was sitting where 
Her lover, slain in battle, slept ; 

Her maiden veil, her own black hair, 
Came down o'er eyes that wept ; 

And wildly, in her woodland tongue. 

This sad and simple lay she sung : 

'* I've pulled away the shrubs that grew 
Too close above thy sleeping head, 

And broke the forest boughs that threw 
Their shadows o'er thy bed. 

That shining from the sweet south-west 

The sunbeams might rejoice thy rest. 

"It was a weary, weary road 

That led thee to thy pleasant coast. 

Where thou, in his serene abode, 
Hast met thy father's ghost ; 

Where everlasting autumn lies 

On yellow woods and sunny skies. 

" 'T was I the broidered mocsin made. 
That shod thee for that distant land ; 



THE INDIAN GIRL'S LAMENT. 65 

'T was I thy bow and arrows laid 

Beside thy still cold hand ; 
Thy bow in many a battle bent, 
Thy arrows never vainly sent. 

" With wampum belts I crossed thy breast, 
And wrapped thee in the bison's hide. 

And laid the food that pleased thee best, 
In plenty, by thy side, 

And decked thee bravely, as became 

A warrior of illustrious name. 

" Thou 'rt happy now, for thou hast passed 

The long dark journey of the grave. 
And in the land of light, at last. 

Hast joined the good and brave ; 
Amid the flushed and balmy air. 
The bravest and the loveliest there. 

" Yet, oft to thine own Indian maid 

Even there thy thoughts will earthward stray, — 
To her who sits where thou wert laid, 

And weeps the hours away, 
Yet almost can her grief forget. 
To think that thou dost love her yet. 

" And thou, by one of those still lakes 

That in a shining cluster lie. 
On which the south wind scarcely breaks 

The image of the sky, 
A bower for thee and me hast made 
Beneath the many-colored shade. 



66 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

*' And thou dost wait and watch to meet 
My spirit sent to join the blest. 

And, wondering what detains my feet 
From the bright land of rest, 

Dost seem, in every sound, to hear 

The rustling of my footsteps near." 



THE ARCTIC LOVER. 

Gone is the long, long winter night, 

Look, my beloved one ! 
How glorious, through his depths of light, 

Rolls the majestic sun. 
The willows, waked from winter's death. 
Give out a fragrance like thy breath — 

The summer is begun ! 

Ay, 't is the long bright summer day : 

Hark, to that mighty crash ! 
The loosened ice-ridge breaks away — 

The smitten waters flash. 
Seaward the glittering mountain rides, 
While, down its green translucent sides, 

The foamy torrents dash. 

See, love, my boat is moored for thee, 

By ocean^s weedy floor — 
The petrel does not skim the sea 

More swiftly than my oar. 
We '11 go where, on the rocky isles, 
Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl piles 

Beside the pebbly shore. 



THE MASSACRE AT SCIO. 67 

Or, bide thou where the poppy blows, 

With wind-flowers frail and fair, 
While I, upon his isle of snows, 

Seek and defy the bear. 
Fierce though he be, and huge of frame, 
This arm his savage strength shall tame, 

And drag him from his lair. 

When crimson sky and flamy cloud 

Bespeak the summer o'er. 
And the dead valleys wear a shroud 

Of snows that melt no more, 
I '11 build of ice thy winter home. 
With glistening walls and glassy dome, 

And spread with skins the floor. 

The white fox by thy couch shall play ; 

And, from the frozen skies. 
The meteors of a mimic day 

Shall flash upon thine eyes. 
And I — for such thy vow — meanwhile 
Shall hear thy voice and see thy smile, 

Till that long midnight flies. 



THE MASSACRE AT SCIO. 

Weep not for Scio's children slain ; 

Their blood, by Turkish falchions shed. 
Sends not its cry to Heaven in vain 

For vengeance on the murderer's head. 



68 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Though high the warm red torrent ran 
Between the flames that lit the sky, 

Yet, for each drop, an armed man 
Shall rise, to free the land, or die. 

And for each corpse, that in the sea 
Was thrown, to feast the scaly herds, 

A hundred of the foe shall be 

A banquet for the mountain birds. 

Stern rites and sad, shall Greece ordain 
To keep that day, along her shore. 

Till the last link of slavery's chain 
Is shivered, to be worn no more. 



VERSION OF A FRAGMENT OF SIM ONI- 

DES. 

The night winds howled — the billows dashed 

Against the tossing chest ; 
And Danae to her broken heart 

Her slumbering infant pressed. 

" My little child " — in tears she said — 

" To wake and weep is mine, 
But thou canst sleep — thou dost not know 

Thy mother's lot, and thine. 

" The moon is up, the moonbeams smile — 

They tremble on the main ; 
But dark, within my floating cell. 

To me they smile in vain. 



THE GREEK PARTISAN: 69 

** Thy folded mantle wraps thee warm, 

Thy clustering locks are dry, 
Thou dost not hear the shrieking gust, 

Nor breakers booming high. 

" As o'er thy sweet unconscious face 

A mournful watch I keep, 
I think, didst thou but know thy fate, 

How thou wouldst also weep. 

*' Yet, dear one, sleep, and sleep, ye winds 

That vex the restless brine — 
When shall these eyes, my babe, be sealed 

As peacefully as thine ? " 



THE GREEK PARTISAN: 

Our free flag is dancing 

In the free mountain air. 
And burnished arms are glancing. 

And warriors gathering there ; 
And fearless is the little train 

Whose gallant bosoms shield it ; 
The blood that warms their hearts shall stain 

That banner, ere they yield it. 
— Each dark eye is fixed on earth, 

And brief each solemn greeting ; 
There is no look or sound of mirth. 

Where those stern men are meeting. 

They go to the slaughter, 
To strike the sudden blow, 



7© BRYANT'S POEMS. 

And pour on earth, like water, 

The best blood of the foe ; 
To rush on them from rock and height, 

And clear the narrow valley, 
Or fire their camp at dead of night, 

And fly before they rally. 

— Chains are round our country pressed. 
And cowards have betrayed her. 

And we must make her bleeding breast 
The grave of the invader. 

Not till from her fetters 

We raise up Greece again. 
And write, in bloody letters. 

That tyranny is slain, — 
Oh, not till then the smile shall steal 

Across those darkened faces. 
Nor one of all those warriors feel 

His children's dear embraces. 

— Reap we not the ripened wheat. 
Till yonder hosts are flying. 

And all their bravest, at our feet, 
Like autumn sheaves are lying. 



ROMERO. 



When freedom, from the land of Spain, 
By Spain's degenerate sons was driven, 

Who gave their willing limbs again 
To wear the chain so lately riven ; 



ROMERO. 71 

Romero broke the sword he wore — 

" Go, faithful brand," the warrior said, 
*' Go, undishonored, never more 

The blood of man shall make thee red ; 

I grieve for that already shed ; 
And I am sick at heart to know. 
That faithful friend and noble foe 
Have only bled to make more strong 
The yoke that Spain has worn so long. 
Wear it who will, in abject fear — 

I wear it not who have been free ; 
The perjured Ferdinand shall hear 

No oath of loyalty from me." 
Then, hunted by the hounds of power, 

Romero chose a safe retreat, 
Where bleak Nevada's summits tower 

Above the beauty at their feet. 
There once, when on his cabin lay 
The crimson light of setting day. 
When even on the mountain's breast 
The chainless winds were all at rest. 
And he could hear the river's flow 
From the calm paradise below ; 
Warmed with his former fires again. 
He framed this rude but solemn strain. 

I. 

" Here will I make my home — for here at least I 

see, 
Upon this wild Sierra's side, the steps of Liberty ; 
Where the locust chirps unscared beneath the un- 

pruned lime. 



)2 BRYANT^S POEMS. 

And the merry bee doth hide from man the spoil of 

the mountain thyme ; 
Where the pure winds come and go, and the wild 

vine strays at will. 
An outcast from the haunts of men, she dwells with 

Nature still. 



II. 

"I see the valleys, Spain! where thy mighty 

rivers run, 
And the hills that lift thy harvests and vineyards 

to the sun. 
And the flocks that drink thy brooks and sprinkle 

all the green. 
Where lie thy plains, with sheep-walks seamed, and 

olive shades between : 
I see thy fig-trees bask, with the fair pomegranate 

near. 
And the fragrance of thy lemon-groves can almost 

reach me here. 



III. 

" Fair— fair — but fallen Spain ! 't is with a swell- 
ing heart. 

That I think on all thou might'st have been, and look 
at what thou art ; 

But the strife is over now — and all the good and 
brave, 

That would have raised thee up, are gone, to exile 
or the grave. 



MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. 73 

Thy fleeces are for monks, thy grapes are for the con- 
vent feast, 

And the wealth of all thy harvest-fields for the pam- 
pered lord and priest. 

IV. 

"But I shall see the day — it will come before I 
die — 
I shall see it in my silver hairs, and with an age- 
dimmed eye ; — 
When the spirit of the land to liberty shall bound, 
As yonder fountain leaps away from the darkness of 

the ground ; 
And, to my mountain cell, the voices of the free 
Shall rise, as from the beaten shore the thunders of 
the sea." 



, MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. 

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild 
Mingled in harmony on Nature's face, 
Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot 
Fail not with weariness, for on their tops 
The beauty and the majesty of earth, 
Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget 
The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st. 
The haunts of men below thee, and around 
The mountain summits, thy expanding heart 
Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world 
To which thou art translated, and partake 
The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look 



74 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Upon the green and rolling forest tops, 

And down into the secrets of the glens, 

And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive 

To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once, 

Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds, 

And swarming roads, and there on solitudes 

That only hear the torrent, and the wind. 

And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice 

That seems a fragment of some mighty wall. 

Built by the hand that fashioned the old world. 

To separate its nations, and thrown down 

When the flood drowned them. To the north a 

path 
Conducts you up the narrow battlement. 
Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild 
With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint. 
And many a hanging crag. But, to the east, 
Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliifs, 
Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear 
Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark 
With the thick moss of centuries, and there 
Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt 
Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing 
To stand upon the beetling verge, and see 
Where storm and lightning, from that huge wall. 
Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base 
Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear 
Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound 
Of winds, that struggle with the woods below, 
Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene 
Is lovely round ; a beautiful river there 
Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads, 



MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. 75 

The paradise he made unto himself, 

Mining the soil for ages. On each side 

The fields swell upward to the hills ; beyond, 

Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise 

The mighty columns with which earth props heaven. 

There is a tale about these gray old rocks, 
A sad tradition of unhappy love, 
And sorrows borne and ended, long ago. 
When over these fair vales the savage sought 
His game in the thick woods. There was a maid, 
The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed, 
With wealth of raven tresses, a light form. 
And a gay heart. About her cabin door 
The wide old woods resounded with her song 
And fairy laughter all the summer day. 
She loved her cousin ; such a love was deemed, 
By the morality of those stern tribes. 
Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long 
Against her love, and reasoned with her heart. 
As simple Indian maiden might. In vain. 
Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step 
Its lightness, and the gray old men that passed 
Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more 
The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks 
Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said, 
Upon the Winter of their age. She went 
To weep where no eye saw, and was not found 
When all the merry girls were met to dance. 
And all the hunters of the tribe were out ; 
Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk 
The shining ear ; nor when, by the river's side. 



76 BRYAMT'S POEMS, 

They pulled the grape and startled the wild shades 
With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames 
Would whisper to each other, as they saw 
Her wasting form, and say, the girl will die. 

One day into the bosom of a friend, 
A playmate of her young and innocent years. 
She poured her griefs. " Thou know'st, and thou 

alone,*' 
She said, " for I have told thee, all my love, 
And guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life. 
All night I weep in darkness, and the morn 
Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed. 
That has no business on the earth, I hate 
The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once 
I loved ; the cheerful voices of my friends 
Have an unnatural horror in mine ear. 
In dreams my mother, from the land of souls, 
Calls me and chides me. All that look on me 
Do seem to know my shame ; I cannot bear 
Their eyes ; I cannot from my heart root out 
The love that wrings it so, and I must die." 

It was a summer morning, and they went 
To this old precipice. About the cliffs 
Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins 
Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe 
Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed, 
Like worshippers of the elder time, that God 
Doth Wc.lk on the high places and affect 
The earth-o"'erlooking mountains. She had on 
The ornaments with which her father loved 
To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl. 



MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. 77 

And bade her wear when stranger warriors came 

To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down, 

And sang, all day, old songs of love and death. 

And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers, 

And prayed that safe and swift might be her way 

To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief 

Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red. 

Beautiful lay the region of her tribe 

Below her — waters resting in the embrace 

Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades 

Opening amid the leafy wilderness. 

She gazed upon it long, and at the sight 

Of her own village peeping through the trees, 

And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof 

Of him she loved with an unlawful love. 

And came to die for, a warm gush of tears 

Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low 

And the hill shadows long, she threw herself 

From the steep rock and perished. There was 

scooped. 
Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave ; 
And there they laid her, in the very garb 
With which the maiden decked herself for death. 
With the same withering wild flowers in her hair. 
And o'er the mould that covered her, the tribe 
Built up a simple monument, a cone 
Of small loose stones. Thenceforward, all who 

passed, 
Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone 
In silence on the pile. It stands there yet. 
And Indians from the distant West, who come 
To visit where their fathers' bones are laid. 



78 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day 
The mountain where the hapless maiden died 
Is called the Mountain of the Monument. 



THE MURDERED TRAVELLER. 

When spring, to woods and wastes around, 

Brought bloom and joy again, 
The murdered traveller's bones were found. 

Far down a narrow glen. 

The fragrant birch, above him, hung 

Her tassels in the sky ; 
And many a vernal blossom sprung, 

And nodded careless by. 

The red-bird warbled, as he wrought 

His hanging nest overhead. 
And fearless, near the fatal spot, 

Her young the partridge led. 

But there was weeping far away, 

And gentle eyes, for him, 
With watching many an anxious day, 

Were sorrowful and dim. 

They little knew, who loved him so, 

The fearful death he met, 
When shouting o'er the desert snow, 

Unarmed, and hard beset ; — 



SONG OF THE GREEK AMAZON, 79 

Nor how, when round the frosty pole 

The northern dawn was red, 
The mountain wolf and wild-cat stole 

To banquet on the dead ; — 

Nor how, when strangers found his bones, 

They dressed the hasty bier, 
And marked his grave with nameless stones, 

Unmoistened by a tear. 

But long they looked, and feared, and wept. 

Within his distant home ; 
And dreamed, and started as they slept, 

For joy that he was come. 

So long they looked — but never spied 

His welcome step again. 
Nor knew the fearful death he died 

Far down that narrow glen. 



SONG OF THE GREEK AMAZON. 

I BUCKLE to my slender side 

The pistol and the cimetar, 
And in my maiden flower and pride 

Am come to share the tasks of war. 
And yonder stands my fiery steed. 

That paws the ground and neighs to go. 
My charger of the Arab breed, — 

I took him from the routed foe. 



8o BRYANT'S POEMS. 

My mirror is the mountain spring, 

At which I dress my ruffled hair ; 
My dimmed and dusty arms I bring, 

And wash away the blood-stain there. 
Why should I guard, from wind and sun, 

This cheek, whose virgin rose is fled? 
It was for one — oh, only one — 

I kept its bloom, and he is dead. 

But they who slew him — unaware 

Of coward murderers lurking nigh — 
And left him to the fowls of air, 

Are yet alive — and they must die. 
They slew him — and my virgin years 

Are vowed to Greece and vengeance now, 
And many an Othman dame, in tears, 

Shall rue the Grecian maiden's vow. 

I touched the lute in better days, 

I led in dance the joyous band ; 
Ah ! they may move to mirthful lays 

Whose hands can touch a lover's hand. 
The march of hosts that haste to meet 

Seems gayer than the dance to me ; 
The lute's sweet tones are not so sweet 

As the fierce shout of victory. 



THE AFRICAN CHIEF. "8i 



THE AFRICAN CHIEF. 

Chained in the market-place he stood, 

A man of giant frame, 
Amid the gathering multitude 

That shrunk to hear his name — 
All stern of look and strong of limb, 

His dark eye on the ground : — 
And silently they gazed on him, 

As on a lion bound. 

Vainly, but well, that chief had fought. 

He was a captive now. 
Yet pride, that fortune humbles not. 

Was written on his brow. 
The scars his dark broad bosom wore 

Showed warrior true and brave ; 
A prince among his tribe before, 

He could not be a slave. 

Then to his conqueror he spake — 

" My brother is a king ; 
Undo this necklace from my neck, 

And take this bracelet ring, 
And send me where my brother reigns, 

And I will fill thy hands 
With store of ivory from the plains, 

And gold-dust from the sands." 

" Not for thy ivory nor thy gold 

Will I unbind thy chain ; 
That bloody hand shall never hold 

The battle-spear again. 



BRYANT'S POEMS. 

A price thy nation never gave, 

Shall yet be paid for thee ; 
For thou shalt be the Christian's slave, 

In lands beyond the sea." 

Then wept the warrior chief, and bade 

To shred his locks away ; 
And, one by one, each heavy braid 

Before the victor lay. 
Thick were the platted locks, and long. 

And deftly hidden there 
Shone many a wedge of gold among 

The dark and crisped hair. 

*' Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold 

Long kept for sorest need ; 
Take it — thou askest sums untold, 

And say that I am freed. 
Take it — my wife, the long, long day, 

Weeps by the cocoa-tree. 
And my young children leave their play, 

And ask in vain for me." 

" I take thy gold — but I have made 

Thy fetters fast and strong, 
And ween that by the cocoa shade 

Thy wife will wait thee long." 
Strong was the agony that shook 

The captive's frame to hear, 
And the proud meaning of his look 

Was changed to mortal fear. 




The African Chief. 



SONG. 83 

His heart was broken — crazed his brain : 

At once his eye grew wild ; 
He struggled fiercely with his chain, 

Whispered, and wept, and smiled ; 
Yet wore not long those fatal bands, 

And once, at shut of day. 
They drew him forth upon the sands, 

The foul hyena's prey. 



SONG. 

Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow 
Reflects the day-dawn cold and clear, 

The hunter of the West must go. 
In depths of woods to seek the deer. 

His rifle on his shoulder placed. 

His stores of death arranged with skill, 

His moccasins and snow-shoes laced, — 
Why lingers he beside the hill? 

Far, in the dim and doubtful light. 
Where woody slopes a valley leave, 

He sees what none but lover might. 
The dwelling of his Genevieve. 

And oft he turns his truant eye. 
And pauses oft, and lingers near ; 

But when he marks the reddening sky. 
He bounds away to hunt the deer. 



84 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



AN INDIAN STORY. 

*' I KNOW where the timid fawn abides 

In the depths of the shaded dell, 
Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides, 
With its many stems and its tangled sides, 

From the eye of the hunter well. 

" I know where the young May violet grows, 

In its lone and lowly nook, 
On the mossy bank, where the larch-tree throws 
Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose. 

Far over the silent brook. 

" And that timid fawn starts not with fear 

When I steal to her secret bower, 
And that young May violet to me is dear, 
And I visit the silent streamlet near. 

To look on the lovely flower."' 

Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks 
To the hunting-ground on the hills ; 
T is a song of his maid of the woods and rocks, 
With her bright black eyes and long black locks. 
And voice like the music of rills. 

He goes to the chase — but evil eyes 

Are at watch in the thicker shades ; 
For she was lovely that smiled on his sighs, 
And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize, 
The flower of the forest maids. 



AN INDIAN STORY. 85 

The boughs in the morning wind are stirred. 

And the woods their song renew, 
With the early carol of many a bird, 
And the quickened tune of the streamlet heard 

Where the hazels trickle with dew. 



And Maquon has promised his dark-haired maid, 

Ere eve shall redden the sky, 
A good red deer from the forest shade. 
That bounds with the herd through grove and 
glade, 

At her cabin door shall lie. 

The hollow woods, in the setting sun. 

Ring shrill with the fire-bird's lay ; 
And Maquon's sylvan labors are done, 
And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won 

He bears on his homeward way. 

He stops near his bower — his eye perceives 

Strange traces along the ground — 
At once, to the earth his burden he heaves, 
And breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves, 

And gains its door with a bound. 

But the vines are torn on its walls that leant, 

And all from the young shrubs there 
By struggling hands have the leaves been rent. 
And there hangs, on the sassafras broken and 
bent. 
One tress of the well-known hair. 



S6 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

But where is she who at this calm hour, 

Ever watched his coming to see ? 
She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower, 
He calls — but he only hears on the flower 
The hum of the laden bee. 



It is not a time for idle grief, 

Nor a time for tears to flow, 
The horror that freezes his limbs is brief — 
He grasps his war-axe and bow, and a sheaf 

Of darts made sharp for the foe. 



And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet, 

Where he bore the maiden away ; 
And he darts on the fatal path more fleet 
Than the blast that hurries the vapor and sleet 
O'er the wild November day. 



'T was early summer when Maquon's bride 

Was stolen away from his door ; 
But at length the maples in crimson are dyed. 
And the grape is black on the cabin side, 

And she smiles at his hearth once more. 



But far in a pine-grove, dark and cold, 

Where the yellow leaf falls not. 
Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold, 
There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould. 
In the deepest gloom of the spot. 



THE HUNTER'S SERENADE. 87 

And the Indian girls, that pass that way, 

Point out the ravisher's grave ; 
" And how soon to the bower she loved," they say, 
" Returned the maid that was borne away 

From Maquon, the fond and the brave." 



THE HUNTER'S SERENADE. 

Thy bower is finished, fairest ! 

Fit bower for hunter's bride — 
Where old woods overshadow . 

The green savanna's side. 
I Ve wandered long, and wandered far. 

And never have I met, 
In all this lovely western land, 

A spot so lovely yet. 
But I shall think it fairer, 

When thou art come to bless. 
With thy sweet smile and silver voice, 

Its silent loveliness. 

For thee the wild grape glistens, 

On sunny knoll and tree. 
And stoops the slim papaya 

With yellow fruit for thee. 
For thee the duck, on glassy stream. 

The prairie-fowl shall die, 
My rifle for thy feast shall bring 

The wild swan from the sky. 
The forest's leaping panther, 

Fierce, beautiful, and fleet, 



SS BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Shall yield his spotted hide to be 
A carpet for thy feet. 

I know, for thou hast told me, 

Thy maiden love of flowers ; 
Ah, those that deck thy gardens 

Are pale compared with ours. 
When our wide woods and mighty lawns 

Bloom to the April skies, 
The earth has no more gorgeous sight 

To show to human eyes. 
In meadows red with blossoms, 

All summer long, the bee 
Murmurs, and loads his yellow thighs, 

For thee, my love, and me. 

Or wouldst thou gaze at tokens 

Of ages long ago — 
Our old oaks stream with mosses, 

And sprout with mistletoe ; 
And mighty vines, like serpents, climb 

The giant sycamore ; 
And trunks, overthrown for centuries. 

Cumber the forest floor ; 
And in the great savannas 

The solitary mound. 
Built by the elder world, o'erlooks 

The loneliness around. 

Come, thou hast not forgotten 
Thy pledge and promise quite. 

With many blushes murmured, 
Beneath the evening light. 



SONG OF MARION'S MEN. 89 

Come, the young violets crowd my door, 

Thy earUest look to win, 
And at my silent window-sill 

The jessamine peeps in. 
All day the red-bird warbles. 

Upon the mulberry near, 
And the night-sparrow trills her song, 

All night, with none to hear. 



SONG OF MARION'S MEN. 

Our band is few, but true and tried, 

Our leader frank and bold ; 
The British soldier trembles 

When Marion's name is told. 
Our fortress is the good greenwood, 

Our tent the cypress-tree ; 
We know the forest round us. 

As seamen know the sea. 
We know its walls of thorny vines. 

Its glades of reedy grass. 
Its safe and silent islands 

Within the dark morass. 

Woe to the English soldiery 

That little dread us near ! 
On them shall light at midnight 

A strange and sudden fear : 
When waking to their tents on fire 

They grasp their arms in vain, 
And they who stand to face us 

Are beat to earth again ; 



90 BRYANT'S POEMS, 

And they who fly in terror deem 

A mighty host behind, 
And hear the tramp of thousands 

Upon the hollow wind. 

Then sweet the hour that brings release 

From danger and from toil : 
We talk the battle over, 

And share the battle's spoil. 
The woodland rings with laugh and shout. 

As if a hunt were up. 
And woodland flowers are gathered 

To crown the soldier's cup. 
With merry songs we mock the wind 

That in the pine-top grieves. 
And slumber long and sweetly, 

On beds of oaken leaves. 

Well knows the fair and friendly moon 

The band that Marion leads — 
The glitter of their rifles, 

The scampering of their steeds. 
'T is life our fiery barbs to guide 

Across the moonlight plains ; 
'T is life to feel the night-wind 

That lifts their tossing manes. 
A moment in the British camp — 

A moment — and away 
Back to the pathless forest, 

Before the peep of day. 

Grave men there are by broad Santee, 
Grave men with hoary hairs, 



SONG. 91 

Their hearts are all with Marion, 

For Marion are their prayers. 
And lovely ladies greet our band, 

With kindliest welcoming, 
With smiles like those of summer, 

And tears like those of spring. 
For them we wear these trusty arms, 

And lay them down no more 
Till we have driven the Briton, 

Forever, from our shore. 



SON-G. 

Dost thou idly ask to hear 

At what gentle seasons 
Nymphs relent, when lovers near 

Press the tenderest reasons ? 
Ah, they give their faith too oft 

To the careless wooer ; 
Maidens' hearts are always soft ; 

Would that men's were truer ! 

Woo the fair one, when around 

Early birds are singing ; 
When, o'er all the fragrant ground, 

Early herbs are springing : 
When the brookside, bank, and grove, 

All with blossoms laden, 
Shine with beauty, breathe of love, — 

Woo the timid maiden. 



92 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Woo her when, with rosy blush, 

Summer eve is sinking ; 
When, on rills that softly gush, 

Stars are softly winking ; 
When, through boughs that knit the bower. 

Moonlight gleams are stealing ; 
Woo her, till the gentle hour 

Wake a gentler feeling. 

Woo her, when autumnal dyes 

Tinge the woody mountain ; 
When the dropping foliage lies, 

In the weedy fountain ; 
Let the scene, that tells how fast 

Youth is passing over. 
Warn her, ere her bloom is past, 

To secure her lover. 

Woo her, when the north winds call 

At the lattice nightly ; 
When, within the cheerful hall, 

Blaze the fagots brightly ; 
While the wintry tempest round 

Sweeps the landscape hoary 
Sweeter in her ear shall sound 

Love's delightful story. 



LOVE AND FOLLY. 93 

LOVE AND FOLLY. 

FROM LA FONTAINE. 

Love's worshippers alone can know 

The thousand mysteries that are his ; 
His blazing torch, his twanging bow, 

His blooming age are mysteries. 
A charming science — but the day 

Were all too short to con it o'er ; 
So take of me this little lay, 

A sample of its boundless lore. 

As once, beneath the fragrant shade 

Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air, 
The children, Love and Folly, played — 

A quarrel rose betwixt the pair. 
Love said the gods should do him right — 

But Follv vowed to do it then, 
And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight. 

So hard, he never saw again. 

His lovely mother's grief was deep. 

She called for vengeance on the deed ; 
A beauty does not vainly weep, 

Nor coldly does a mother plead, 
A shade came o'er the eternal bliss 

That fills the dwellers of the skies ; 
Even stony-hearted Nemesis, 

And Rhadamanthus, wiped their eyes. 

*' Behold," she said, " this lovely boy," 
While streamed afresh her graceful tears, 



94 . BRYANT'S POEMS. 

" Immortal, yet shut out from joy 
And sunshine, all his future years. 

The child can never take, you see, 
A single step without a staff — 

The harshest punishment would be 
Too lenient for the crime by half." 

All said that Love had suffered wrong, 

And well that wrong should be repaid ; 
Then weighed the public interest long. 

And long the party's interest weighed. 
And thus decreed the court above — 

" Since Love is blind from Folly's blow, 
Let Folly be the guide of Love, 

Where'er the boy may choose to go." 



F ATI MA AND RADUAN. 

FROM THE SPANISH. 

Diamante falso y fingido, 
Engastado en pedernal, etc. 

" False diamonds set in flint ! the caverns of the 

mine 
Are warmer than the breast that holds that faithless 

heart of thine ; 
Thou art fickle as the sea, thou art wandering as the 

wind. 
And the restless ever-mounting-flame is not more 

hard to bind. 
If the tears I shed were tongues, yet all too few 

would be, 



FA TIM A AND RADUAN. 95 

To tell of all the treachery that thou hast shown 

to me. 
Oh ! I could chide thee sharply — but every maiden 

knows 
That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he 

goes. 

" Thou hast called me oft the flower of all Granada's 

maids, 
Thou hast said that by the side of me the first and 

fairest fades ; 
And they thought thy heart was mine, and it seemed 

to every one 
That what thou didst to win my love, from love of 

me was done. 
Alas ! if they but knew thee, as mine it is to know, 
They well might seek another mark to which thine 

arrows go ; 
But thou giv'st me little heed — for I speak to one 

who knows 
That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he 

goes. 

" It wearies me, mine enemy, that I must weep and 

bear 
What fills thy heart with triumph, and fills my own 

with care. 
Thou art leagued with those that hate me, and ah ! 

thou know'st I feel 
That cruel words as surely kill as sharpest blades of 

steel. 
'T was the doubt that thou wert false that wrung my 

heart with pain ; 



96 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

But, now I know thy perfidy, I shall be well again. 
I would proclaim thee as thou art — but every maiden 

knows 
That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he 

goes." 

Thus Fatima complained to the valiant Raduan, 
Where underneath the myrtles Alhambra's fountains 

ran : 
The Moor was inly moved, and blameless as he was, 
He took her white hand in his own, and pleaded thus 

his cause : 
" Oh, lady, dry those star-like eyes — their dimness 

does me wrong ; 
If my heart be made of flint, at least \ will keep thy 

image long : 
Thou hast uttered cruel words — but I grieve the less 

for those. 
Since she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he 

goes." 



THE DEATH OF ALIATAR. 

FROM THE SPANISH. 

'T is not with gilded sabres 
That gleam in baldricks blue, 

Nor nodding plumes in caps of Fez, 
Of gay and gaudy hue — 

But, habited in mourning weeds, 
Come marching from afar, 



THE DEATH OF ALIA TAR. 97 

By four and four, the valiant men 

Who fought with Aliatar. 
All mournfully and slowly 

The afflicted warriors come, 
To the deep wail of the trumpet, 

And beat of muffled drum. 

The banner of the Phoenix, 

The flag that loved the sky, 
That scarce the wind dared wanton with, 

It flew so proud and high — 
Now leaves its place in battle-field, 

And sweeps the ground in grief. 
The bearer drags its glorious folds 

Behind the fallen chief, 
As mournfully and slowly 

The afflicted warriors come. 
To the deep wail of the trumpet, 

And beat of muffled drum. 

Brave Aliatar led forward 

A hundred Moors to go 
To where his brother held Motril 

Against the leaguering foe. 
On horseback went the gallant Moor, 

That gallant band to lead ; 
And now his bier is at the gate. 

From whence he pricked his steed. 
While mournfully and slowly 

The afflicted warriors come, 
To the deep wail of the trumpet, 

And beat of muffled drum. 



98 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

The knights of the Grand Master 

In crowded ambush lay ; 
They rushed upon him where the reeds 

Were thick beside the way ; 
They smote the valiant Aliatar, 

They smote him till he died, 
And broken, but not beaten, were 

The brave ones by his side. 
Now mournfully and slowly 

The afiflicted warriors come, 
To the deep wail of the trumpet, 

And beat of muffled drum. 

Oh ! what was Zayda's sorrow, 

How passionate her cries ! 
• Her lover's wounds streamed not more free 

Than that poor maiden's eyes. 
Say, Love — for thou didst see her tears : 

Oh, no! he drew more tight 
The blinding fillet o'er his hds. 

To spare his eyes the sight. 
While mournfully and slowly 

The afflicted warriors come, 
To the deep wail of the trumpet, 

And beat of muffled drum. 

Nor Zayda weeps him only. 

But all that dwell between 
The great Alhambra's palace walls 

And springs of Albaicin. 
The ladies weep the flower of knights, 

The brave the bravest here ; 



THE ALCA YDK OF MOLINA. 99 

The people weep a champion, 

The Alcaydes a noble peer. 
While mournfully and slowly 

The afflicted warriors come, 
To the deep wail of the trumpet, 

And beat of muffled drum. 



THE ALCAYDE OF MOLINA. 

FROM THE SPANISH. 

To the town of Atienza, Molina's brave Alcayde, 

The courteous and the valorous, led forth his bold 
brigade. 

The Moor came back in triumph, he came without a 
wound, 

With many a Christian standard, and Christian cap- 
tive bound. 

He passed the city portals, with swelling heart and 
vein, 

And toward his lady's dwelling, he rode with slack- 
ened rein ; 

Two circuits on his charger he took, and at the third, 

From the door of her balcony Zelinda's voice was 
heard. 

" Now if thou wert not shameless," said the lady to 
the Moor, 

'•Thou wouldst neither pass my dwelling, nor stop 
before my door. 

Alas for poor Zelinda, and for her wayward mood, 

That one in love with peace, should have loved a 
man of blood ! 



lOO BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Since not that thou wert noble I chose thee for my 

knight, 
But that thy sword was dreaded in tourney and in 

fight. 
Ah, thoughtless and unhappy! that I should fail to 

see 
How ill the stubborn flint and the yielding wax agree. 
Boast not thy love for me, while the shrieking of the 

fife 
Can change thy mood of mildness to fury and to 

strife. 
Say not my voice is magic — thy pleasure is to hear 
The bursting of the carbine, the shivering of the 

spear. 
Well, follow thou thy choice — to the battle-field 

away. 
To thy triumphs and thy trophies, since I am less 

than they. 
Thrust thy a^m into thy buckler, gird on thy crooked 

brand, 
And call upon thy trusty squire to bring thy spears 

in hand. 
Lead forth thy band to skirmish, by mountain and 

by mead. 
On thy dappled Moorish barb, or thy fleeter border 

steed. 
Go, waste the Christian hamlets, and sweep away 

their flocks. 
From Almazan's broad meadows to Siguenza's rocks. 
Leave Zelinda altogether, whom thou leavest oft and 

long. 
And in the life thou lovest forget whom thou dost 

wrong. 



FROM THE SPANISH OF VILLEGAS. loi 

These eyes shall not recall thee, though they meet no 

more thine own, 
Though they weep that thou art absent, and that I 

am all alone." 
She ceased, and turning from him her flushed and 

angry cheek. 
Shut the door of her balcony before the Moor could 

speak. 



FROM THE SPANISH OF VILLEGAS. 

'T is sweet, in the green Spring, 
To gaze upon the wakening fields around ; 

Birds in the thicket sing, 
Winds whisper, waters prattle from the ground ; 

A thousand odors rise, 
Breathed up from blossoms of a thousand dyes. 

Shadowy, and close, and cool, 
The pine and poplar keep their quiet nook ; 

Forever fresh and full. 
Shines, at their feet, the thirst-inviting brook ; 

And the soft herbage seems 
Spread for a place of banquets and of dreams. 

Thou, who alone art fair. 
And whom alone I love, art far away. 

Unless thy smile be there. 
It makes me sad to see the earth so gay ; 

I care not if the train 
Of leaves, and flowers, and zephyrs go again. 



1P2 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

THE LIFE OF THE BLESSED. 

FROM THE SPANISH OF LUIS PONCE DE LEON. 

Region of life and light ! 
Land of the good whose earthly toils are o'er ! 

Nor frost nor heat may blight 

Thy vernal beauty, fertile shore, 
Yielding thy blessed fruits for evermore ! 

There, without crook or sling, 
Walks the Good Shepherd ; blossoms white and red 

Round his meek temples cling ; 

And, to sweet pastures led. 
His own loved flock beneath his eye is fed. 

He guides, and near him they 
Follow delighted, for he makes them go 

Where dwells eternal May, 

And heavenly roses blow. 
Deathless, and gathered but again to grow. 

He leads them to the height 
Named of the infinite and long-sought Good, 

And fountains of delight ; 

And where his feet have stood 
Springs up, along the way, their tender food. 

And when, in the mid skies, 
The climbing sun has reached his highest bound, 

Reposing as he lies, 

With all his flock around. 
He witches the still air with numerous sound. 



MARY MAGDALEN. 103 

From his sweet lute flow forth 
Immortal harmonies, of power to still 

All passions born of earth, 

And draw the ardent will 
Its destiny of goodness to fulfil. 

Might but a little part, 
A wandering breath of that high melody, 

Descend into my heart, 

And change it till it be 
Transformed and swallowed up, oh love ! in thee. 

Ah ! then my soul should know. 
Beloved ! where thou liest at noon of day, 

And from this place of woe 

Released, should take its way 
To mingle with thy flock and never stray. 



MARY MAGDALEN. 

FROM THE SPANISH OF BARTOLOME LEONARDO 
DE ARGENSOLA. 

Blessed, yet sinful one, and broken-hearted ! 
The crowd are pointing at the thing forlorn, 
In wonder and in scorn ! 
Thou weepest days of innocence departed ; 

Thou weepest, and thy tears have power to move 
The Lord to pity and love. 

The greatest of thy follies is forgiven. 

Even for the least of all the tears that shine 
On that pale cheek of thine. 



I04 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Thou didst kneel down, to Him who came from 
heaven, 
Evil and ignorant, and thou shalt rise 
Holy, and pure, and wise. 

It is not much that to the fragrant blossom 
The ragged brier should change ; the bitter fir 
Distil Arabian myrrh ; 
Nor that, upon the wintry desert's bosom. 

The harvest should rise plenteous, and the swain 
Bear home the abundant grain. 

But come and see the bleak and barren mountains 
Thick to their top with roses ; come and see 
Leaves on the dry dead tree : 
The perished plant, set out by living fountains. 
Grows fruitful, and its beauteous branches rise. 
Forever, toward the skies. 



THE SIESTA. 

FROM THE SPANISH. 



Vientecico murmurador, 
Que lo gozas y andas todo, etc. 

Airs, that wander and murmur round, 
Bearing delight where'er ye blow ! 

Make in the elms a lulling sound. 

While my lady sleeps in the shade below. 



FROM THE SPANISH. 105 

Lighten and lengthen her noonday rest, 
Till the heat of the noonday sun is o'er. 

Sweet be her slumbers ! though in my breast 
The pain she has waked may slumber no more. 

Breathing soft from the blue profound, 

Bearing delight where'er ye blow, 
Make in the elms a lulling sound. 

While my lady sleeps in the shade below. 

Airs ! that over the bending boughs. 
And under the shadows of the leaves, 

Murmur soft, like my timid vows 

Or the secret sigh my bosom heaves, — 

Gently sweeping the grassy ground, 

Bearing delight where'er ye blow. 
Make in the elms a lulling sound, 

While my lady sleeps in the shade below. 



FROM THE SPANISH 

OF PEDRO DE CASTRO Y Af^AYA. 

Stay, rivulet, nor haste to leave 

The lovely vale that lies around thee. 

Why wouldst thou be a sea at eve. 

When but a fount the morning found thee? 

Born when the skies began to glow, 

Humblest of all the rock's cold daughters, 

No blossom bowed its stalk to show 
Where stole thy still and scanty waters. 



lo6 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Now on thy stream the moonbeams look, 
Usurping, as thou downward driftest, 

Its crystal from the clearest brook, 
Its rushing current from the swiftest. 

Ah ! what wild haste ! — and all to be 

A river and expire in ocean. 
Each fountain's tribute hurries thee 

To that vast grave with quicker motion. 

Far better 't were to linger still 

In this green vale, these flowers to cherish, 
And die in peace, an aged rill. 

Than thus, a youthful Danube, perish. 



THE COUNT OF GREIERS. 

FROM THE GERMAN. 

At morn the Count of Greiers before his castle 

stands ; 
He sees afar the glory that lights the mountain 

lands ; 
The horned crags are shining, and in the shade 

between 
A pleasant Alpine valley lies beautifully green. 

"Oh, greenest of the valleys, how shall I come to 

thee ! 
Thy herdsmen and thy maidens, how happy must 

they be ! 



THE COUNT OF GREIERS. 107 

I have gazed upon thee coldly, all lovely as thou art, 
But the wish to walk thy pastures now stirs my 
inmost heart." 

He hears a sound of timbrels, and suddenly appear 
A troop of ruddy damsels and herdsmen drawing 

near ; 
They reach the castle greensward, and gayly dance 

across ; 
The white sleeves flit and glimmer, the wreaths and 

ribbons toss. 

The youngest of the maidens, slim as a spray of 

spring. 
She takes the young Count's fingers, and draws him 

to the ring ; 
They fling upon his forehead a crown of mountain 

flowers, 
" And ho, young Count of Greiers ! this morning 

thou art ours ! " 

Then hand in hand departing, with dance and 

roundelay. 
Through hamlet after hamlet, they lead the Count 

away. 
They dance through wood and meadow, they dance 

across the linn. 
Till the mighty Alpine summits have shut the music 

in. 

The second morn is risen, and now the third is come ; 
Where stays the Count of Greiers ? has he forgot his 
home ? 



lo8 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Again the evening closes, in thick and sultry air, 
There 's thunder on the mountains, the storm is 
gathering there. 

The cloud has shed its waters, the brook comes 

swollen down ; 
You see it by the lightning — a river wide and brown. 
Around a struggling swimmer the eddies dash and 

roar. 
Till, seizing on a willow, he swings him to the 

shore. 

" Here am I cast by tempests far from your mountain 
dell. 

Amid our evening dances the bursting deluge fell. 

Ye all, in cots and caverns, have 'scaped the water- 
spout, 

While me alone the tempest overwhelmed and hurried 
out. 

" Farewell, with thy glad dwellers, green vale 

among the rocks ! 
Farewell the swift sweet moments, in which I 

watched thy flocks ! 
Why rocked they not my cradle in that delicious 

spot. 
That garden of the happy, where Heaven endures 

me not? 

" Rose of the Alpine valley ! I feel, in every vein. 
Thy soft touch on my fingers ; oh, press them not 
again ! 



SONG. 109 

Bewitch me not, ye garlands, to tread that upward 
track, 

And thou, my cheerless mansion, receive thy mas- 
ter back." 



SONG. 

FROM THE SPANISH OF IGLESIAS. 

Alexis calls me cruel ; 

The rifted crags that hold 
The gathered ice of winter. 

He says, are not more cold. 

When even the very blossoms 
Around the fountain's brim. 

And forest walks, can witness 
The love I bear to him. 

I would that I could utter 
My feelings without shame ; 

And tell him how I love him, 
Nor wrong my virgin fame. 

Alas ! to seize the moment 
When heart inclines to heart, 

And press a suit with passion, 
Is not a woman's part. 

If man comes not to gather 
The roses where they stand, 

They fade among their foliage ; 
They cannot seek his hand. 



no BRYANT'S POEMS. 

SONNET. 

FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF SEMEDO. 

It is a fearful night ; a feeble glare 

Streams from the sick moon in the overclouded 
sky; 

The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry, 
Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare ; 
No bark the madness of the waves will dare ; 

The sailors sleep ; the winds are loud and high ; 

Ah, peerless Laura ! for whose love I die, 
Who gazes on thy smiles whik I despair? 

As thus, in bitterness of heart, I cried, 
I turned, and saw my Laura, kind and bright, 

A messenger of gladness, at my side : 
To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light, 

And as we furrowed Tago^s heaving tide, 
I never saw so beautiful a night. 



LOVE IN THE AGE OF CHIVALRY. 

FROM PEYRE VIDAL, THE TROUBADOUR 

The earth was sown with early flowers, 

The heavens were blue and bright — 
I met a youthful cavalier 

As lovely as the light. 
I knew him not — but in my heart 

His graceful image lies, 
And well I marked his open brow, 

His sweet and tender eyes, 



THE LOVE OF GOD. m 

His ruddy lips that ever smiled, 

His glittering teeth betwixt, 
And flowing robe embroidered o'er, 

With leaves and blossoms mixed. 
He wore a chaplet of the rose, 

His palfrey, white and sleek, 
Was marked with many an ebon spot. 

And many a purple streak ; 
Of jasper was his saddle-bow, 

His housings sapphire stone, 
And brightly in his stirrup glanced 

The purple calcedon. 
Fast rode the gallant cavalier. 

As youthful horsemen ride ; 
" Peyre Vidal ! know that I am Love." 

The blooming stranger cried ; 
" And this is Mercy by my side, 

A dame of high degree ; 
This maid is Chastity," he said, 

" This squire is Loyalty." 



THE LOVE OF GOD. 

FROM THE PROVENCAL OF BERNARD RASCAS. 

All things that are on earth shall wholly pass 
away, 
Except the love of God, which shall live and last 
for ave. 



112 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

The forms of men shall be as they had never 

been ; 
The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and 

tender green ; 
The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant 

song, 
And the nightingale shall cease to chant the even- 
ing long. 
The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that 

kills, 
And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the 

hills. 
The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the 

fox, 
The wild-boar of the wood, and the chamois of the 

rocks, 
And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden 

dust shall lie ; 
And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, 

shall die. 
And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no 

more. 
And they shall bow to death, who ruled from 

shore to shore ; 
And the great globe itself (so the holy writings 

tell), 
With the rolling firmament, where the starry 

armies dwell, 
Shall melt with fervent heat — they shall all pass 

away, 
Except the love of God, which shall live and last 

for aye. 



THE HURRICANE. 1 13 

THE HURRICANE. 

Lord of the winds ! I feel thee nigh, 
I know thy breath in the burning sky ! 
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein, 
For the coming of the hurricane ! 

And lo ! on the wing of the heavy gales, 
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails ; 
Silent, and slow, and terribly strong. 
The mighty shadow is borne along. 
Like the dark eternity to come ; 
While the world below, dismayed and dumb, 
Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere 
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear. 

They darken fast — and the golden blaze 
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze. 
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray — 
A glare that is neither night nor day, 
A beam that touches, with hues of death, 
The clouds above and the earth beneath. 
To its covert glides the silent bird. 
While the hurricane's distant voice is heard. 
Uplifted among the mountains round. 
And the forests hear and answer the sound. 

He is come ! he is come ! do ye not behold 
His ample robes on the wind unrolled ? 
Giant of air ! we bid thee hail ! — 
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale ; 
How his huge and writhing arms are bent. 
To clasp the zone of the firmament. 
And fold, at length, in their dark embrace. 



114 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

From mountain to mountain the visible space. 

Darker — still darker ! the whirlwinds bear 
The dust of the plains to the middle air : 
And hark to the crashing, long and loud. 
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud ! 
You may trace its path by the flashes that start 
From the rapid wheels where'er they dart, 
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below. 
And flood the skies with a lurid glow. 

What roar is that? — ''t is the rain that breaks, 
In torrents away from the airy lakes, 
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground, 
And shedding a nameless horror round, 
Ah ! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies, 
With the very clouds ! — ye are lost to my eyes. 
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place 
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space, 
A whirling ocean that fills the wall 
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all. 
And I, cut ofl'from the world, remain 
Alone with the terrible hurricane. 



MARCH. 



The stormy March is come at last, 
With wind, and cloud, and changing skies ; 

I hear the rushing of the blast. 

That through the snowy valley flies. 



MARCH. IIS 

Ah, passing few are they who speak, 
Wild stormy month ! in praise of thee ; 

Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak, 
Thou art a welcome month to me. 

For thou, to northern lands again. 
The glad and glorious sun dost bring, 

And thou hast joined the gentle train 
And wear'st the gentle name of Spring. 

And, in thy reign of blast and storm. 
Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, 

When the changed winds are soft and warm, 
And heaven puts on the blue of May. 

Then sing aloud the gushing rills 

And the full springs, from frost set free, 

That, brightly leaping down the hills, 
Are just set out to meet the sea. 

The year's departing beauty hides 

Of wintry storms, the sullen threat ; 
But, in thy sternest frown abides 

A look of kindly promise yet. 

Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies, 
And that soft time of sunny showers. 

When the wide bloom, on earth that lies, 
Seems of a brighter world than ours. 



ii6 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



SPRING IN TOWN. 

The country ever has a lagging Spring, 
Waiting for May to call its violets forth, 

And June its roses — showers and sunshine bring 
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth ; 

To put their foliage out, the woods are slack, 

And one by one the singing-birds come back. 

Within the city's bounds the time of flowers 
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day. 

Such as full often, for a few bright hours, 

Breathes through the sky of March the airs of 
May, 

Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry gloom — 

And lo ! our borders glow with sudden bloom. 

For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are then 
Gorgeous as are a rivulet's banks in June, 

That overhung with blossoms, through its glen, 
Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon. 

And they who search the untrodden wood for flowers 

Meet in its depths no lovelier ones than ours. 

For here are eyes that shame the violet, 
Or the dark drop that on the pansy lies. 

And foreheads, white, as when in clusters set. 
The anemones by forest fountains rise ; 

And the spring-beauty boasts no tenderer streak 

Than the soft red on many a youthful cheek. 



SPRING IN TOWN. 1 17 

And thick about those lovely temples lie 

Locks that the lucky Vignardonne has curled, 

Thrice happy man ! whose trade it is to buy. 

And bake, and braid those love-knots of the world ; 

Who curls of every glossy color keepest, 

And sellest, it is said, the blackest cheapest. 

And well thou may'st — for Italy's brown maids 
Send the dark locks with which their brows are 
dressed, 

And Gascon lasses, from their jetty braids, 
Crop half, to buy a ribbon for the rest ; 

But the fresh Norman girls their tresses spare, 

And the Dutch damsel keeps her flaxen hair. 

Then, henceforth, let no maid her matron grieve, 

To see her locks of an unlovely hue, 
Frowzy or thin, for liberal art shall give 

Such piles of curls as nature never knew. 
Eve, with her veil of tresses, at the sight 
Had blushed, outdone, and owned herself a fright. 

Soft voices and light laughter wake the street, 
Like notes of woodbirds, and where'er the eye 

Threads the long way, plumes wave, and twinkling 
feet 
Fall light, as hastes that crowd of beauty by. 

The ostrich, hurrying o'er the desert space, 

Scarce bore those tossing plumes with fleeter pace. 

No swimming Juno gait, of languor born. 
Is theirs, but a light step of freest grace, 



II 8 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Light as Camilla's o'er the unbent corn, 

A step that speaks the spirit of the place, 
Since Quiet, meek old dame, was driven away 
To Sing Sing and the shores of Tappan Bay. 

Ye that dash by in chariots ! who will care 
For steeds or footmen now ? ye cannot show 

Fair face, and dazzling dress, and graceful air, 
And last edition of the shape ! Ah no. 

These sights are for the earth and open sky. 

And your loud wheels unheeded rattle by. 



SUMMER WIND. 



It is a sultry day ; the sun has drunk 
The dew that lay upon the morning grass ; 
There is' no rustling in the lofty elm 
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade 
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint 
And interrupted murmur of the bee, 
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again 
Instantly on the wing. The plants around 
Feel the too potent fervors : the tall maize 
Rolls up its long green leaves ; the clover droops 
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms. 
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills, 
With all their growth of woods, silent and stern. 
As if the scorching heat and dazzling light 
Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds, 
Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven, — 



SUMMER WIND. 1 19 

Their bases on the mountains — their white tops 

Shining in the far ether — fire the air 

With a reflected radiance, and make turn 

The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie 

Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf. 

Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun. 

Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind 

That still delays its coming. Why so slow, 

Gentle and voluble spirit of the air ? 

Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth 

Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves 

He hears me ? See, on yonder woody ridge, 

The pine is bending his proud top, and now 

Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak 

Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes ! 

Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves ! 

The deep distressful silence of the scene 

Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds 

And universal motion. He is come, 

Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs, 

And bearing on their fragrance ; and he brings 

Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs, 

And sound of swaying branches, and the voice 

Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs 

Are stirring in his breath ; a thousand flowers, 

By the road-side and the borders of the brook. 

Nod gayly to each other ; glossy leaves 

Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew 

Were on them yet, and silver waters break 

Into small waves and sparkle as he comes. 



I20 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



AUTUMN WOODS. 

Ere, in the northern gale, 
The summer tresses of the trees are gone, 
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale. 

Have put their glory on. 

The mountains that infold, 
In their wide sweep, the colored landscape round 
Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold. 

That guard the enchanted ground. 

I roam the woods that crown 
The upland, where the mingled splendors glow. 
Where the gay company of trees look down 

On the green fields below. 

My steps are not alone 
In these bright walks ; the sweet south-west, at play, 
Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown 

Along the winding way. 

And far in heaven, the while, 
The sun, that sends that gale to wander here. 
Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile, — 

The sweetest of the year. 

Where now the solemn shade, 
Verdure and gloom where many branches meet \ 
So grateful, when the noon of summer made 

The valleys sick with heat ? 



AUTUMN WOODS. t2i 

Let in through all the trees 
Come the strange rays ; the forest depths are bright ; 
Their sunny-colored foliage, in the breeze, 

Twinkles, like beams of light. 

The rivulet, late unseen, 
Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run. 
Shines with the image of its golden screen, 

And glimmerings of the sun. 

But, 'neath yon crimson tree, 
Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, 
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, 

Her blush of maiden shame. 

Oh, Autumn ! why so soon 
Depart the hues that make thy forests glad ; 
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon, 

And leave thee wild and sad ? 

Ah ! 't were a lot too blest 
Forever in thy colored shades to stray ; 
Amid the kisses of the soft south-west 

To rove and dream for aye ; 

And leave the vain low strife 
That makes men mad — the tug for wealth and power. 
The passions and the cares that wither life, 

And waste its little hour. 



122 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



A WINTER PIECE. 



The time has been that these wild solitudes, 
Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me 
Oftener than now ; and when the ills of life 
Had chafed my spirit — when the unsteady pulse 
Beat with strange flutterings — I would wander forth 
And seek the woods. The sunshine on my path 
Was to me as a friend. The swelling hills, 
The quiet dells retiring far between, 
With gentle invitation to explore 
Their windings, were a calm society 
That talked with me and soothed me. Then the 

chant 
Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress 
Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget 
The thoughts that broke my peace, and I began 
To gather simples by the fountain's brink. 
And lose myself in day-dreams. While I stood 
In Nature's loneliness, I was with one 
With whom I early grew familiar, one 
Who never had a frown for me, whose voice 
Never rebuked me for the hours I stole 
From cares I loved not, but of which the world 
Deems highest, to converse with her. When shrieked 
The bleak November winds, and smote the woods, 
And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades. 
That met above the merry rivulet, 
Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still ; they 

seemed 
Like old companions in adversity. 
Still there was beauty in my walks ; the brook, 



WINTER PIECE. 1 23 

Bordered with sparkling frost-work, was as gay 

As with its fringe of summer flowers. Afar, 

The village with its spires, the path of streams, 

And dim receding valleys, hid before 

By interposing trees, lay visible 

Through the bare grove, and my familiar haunts 

Seemed new to me. Nor was I slow to come 

Among them, when the clouds, from their still skirts, 

Had shaken down on earth the feathery snow, 

And all was white. The pure keen air abroad. 

Albeit it breathed no scent of herb, nor heard 

Love-call of bird nor merry hum of bee. 

Was not the air of death. Bright mosses crept 

Over the spotted trunks, and the close buds, 

That lay along the boughs, instinct with life. 

Patient, and waiting the soft breath of Spring, 

Feared not the piercing spirit of the North. 

The snow-bird twittered on the beechen bough, 

And 'neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent 

Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry 

A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves. 

The partridge found a shelter. Through the snow 

The rabbit sprang away. The lighter track 

Of fox, and the raccoon's broad path were there. 

Crossing each other. From his hollow tree. 

The squirrel was abroad, gathering the nuts 

Just fallen, that asked the winter cold and sway 

Of winter blast, to shake them from their hold. 

But Winter has yet brighter scenes, — he boasts 
Splendors beyond what gorgeous Summer knows ; 
Or Autumn, with his many fruits, and woods 
All flushed with manv hues. Come, when the rains 



124 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees with ice ; 

While the slant sun of February pours 

Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach! 

The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps, 

And the broad arching portals of the grove 

Welcome thy entering. Look ! the massy trunks 

Are cased in the pure crystal ; each light spray, 

Nodding and twinkling in the breath of heaven. 

Is studded with its trembling water-drops, 

That stream with rainbow radiance as they move. 

But round the parent stem the long low boughs 

Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbors hide 

The glassy floor. Oh ! you might deem the spot, 

The spacious cavern of some virgin mine, 

Deep in the womb of earth — where the gems grow. 

And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud 

With amethyst and topaz — and the place 

Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam 

That dwells in them. Or haply the vast hall 

Of faiiy palace, that outlasts the night. 

And fades not in the glory of the sun ; — 

Where crystal columns send forth slender shafts 

And crossing arches ; and fantastic aisles 

Wind from the sight in brightness, and are lost 

Among the crowded pillars. Raise thine eye. 

Thou seest no cavern roof, no palace vault ; 

There the blue sky and the white drifting cloud 

Look in. Again the wildered fancy dreams 

Of spouting fountains, frozen as they rose. 

And fixed, with all their branching jets, in air 

And all their sluices sealed. All, all is light ; 

Light without shade. But all shall pass away 



WINTER PIECE. 125 

With the next sun. From the numberless vast trunks, 
Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound 
Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve 
Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont. 

And it is pleasant, when the noisy streams 
Are just set free, and milder suns melt off 
The plashy snow, save only the firm drift 
In the deep glen or the close shade of pines, — 
'T is pleasant to behold the wreaths of smoke 
Roll up among the maples of the hill, 
\yhere the shrill sound of youthful voices wakes 
The shriller echo, as the clear pure lymph. 
That from the wounded trees, in twinkling drops, 
Falls, 'mid the golden brightness of the morn, 
Is gathered in with brimming pails, and oft. 
Wielded by sturdy hands, the stroke of axe 
Makes the woods ring. Along the quiet air, 
Come and float calmly off the soft light clouds, 
Such as you see in summer, and the winds 
Scarce stir the branches. Lodged in sunny cleft, 
Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone 
The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye 
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at — 
Startling the loiterer in the naked groves 
With unexpected beauty, for the time 
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar. 
And ere it comes, the encountering winds shall oft 
Muster their wrath again, and rapid clouds 
Shade heaven, and bounding on the frozen earth 
Shall fall their volleyed stores, rounded like hail, 
And white like snow, and the loud North again 
Shall buffet the vexed forests in his rage. 



126 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

''OH FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS r 

Oh fairest of the rural maids ! 
Thy birth was in the forest shades ; 
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky, 
Were all that met thy infant eye. 

Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child, 
Were ever in the sylvan wild ; 
And all the beauty of the place 
Is in thy heart and on thy face. 

The twilight of the trees and rocks 
Is in the light shade of thy locks ; 
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves 
Its playful way among the leaves. 

Thy eyes are springs, in whose serene 
And silent waters heaven is seen ; 
Their lashes are the herbs that look 
On their young figures in the brook. 

The forest depths, by foot unpressed, 
Are not more sinless than thy breast ; 
The holy peace that fills the air 
Of those calm solitudes is there. 



THE DISINTERRED WARRIOR, 

Gather him to his grave again 
And solemnly and softly lay. 

Beneath the verdure of the plain. 
The warrior's scattered bones away. 




"Oh, fairest of the rural maids!" 



THE DISINTERRED WARRIOR. 127 

Pay the deep reverence, taught of old, 
The homage of man's heart to death ; 

Nor dare to trifle with the mould 

Once hallowed by the Almighty's breath. 

The soul hath quickened every part — 

That remnant of a martial brow. 
Those ribs that held a mighty heart, 

That strong arm — strong no longer now. 
Spare them, each mouldering relic spare. 

Of God's own image ; let them rest, 
Till not a trace shall speak of where 

The awful likeness was impressed. 

For he was fresher from the hand 

That formed of earth the human face. 
And to the elements did stand 

In nearer kindred than our race. 
In many a flood to madness tossed, 

In many a storm has been his path ; 
He hid him not from heat or frost, 

But met them, and defied their wrath. 

Then they were kind — the forests here, 

Rivers, and stiller waters paid 
A tribute to the net and spear 

Of the red ruler of the shade. 
Fruits on the woodland branches lay. 

Roots in the shaded soil below, 
The stars looked forth to teach his way, 

The still earth warned him of the foe. 



128 BRYANT'S POEMS, 

A noble race ! but they are gone, 

With their old forests wide and deep, 
And we have built our homes upon 

Fields where their generations sleep. 
Their fountains slake our thirst at noon, 

Upon their fields our harvest waves, 
Our lovers woo beneath their moon — 

Ah, let us spare, at least, their graves I 



THE GREEK BOY. 

Gone are the glorious Greeks of old. 

Glorious in mien and mind ; 
Their bones are mingled with the mould. 

Their dust is on the wind ; 
The forms they hewed from living stone. 
Survive the waste of years, alone, 
And, scattered with their ashes, show 
What greatness perished long ago. 

Yet fresh the myrtles there — the springs 

Gush brightly as of yore ; 
Flowers blossom from the dust of kings. 

As many an age before. 
There Nature moulds as nobly now, 
As e'er of old, the human brow ; 
And copies still the martial form 
That braved Plataea's battle storm. 

Boy ! thy first looks were taught to seek 
Their Heaven in Hellas' skies ,• 



''UPON THE mountain:' 129 

Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek, 

Her sunshine lit thine eyes ; 
Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains 
Heard by old poets, and thy veins 
Swell with the blood of demigods, 
That slumber in thy country's sods. 

Now is thy nation free — though late — 

Thy elder brethren broke — 
Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight, 

The intolerable yoke. 
And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see 
Her youth renewed in such as thee : 
A shoot of that old vine that made 
The nations silent in its shade. 



upon the mountain's distant 
head:' 

Upon the mountain's distant head. 
With trackless snows forever white. 

Where all is still, and cold, and dead, 
Late shines the day's departing light. 

But far below those icy rocks, — ■ 

The vales, in summer bloom arrayed, 

Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks, 
Are dim with mist and dark with shade. 

'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts 
And eyes where generous meanings burn, 

Earliest the light of life departs. 
But lingers with the cold and stern. 



130 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

SONNET— WILLIAM TELL. 

Chains may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee, 
Tell, of the iron heart ! they could not tame ; 
For thou wert of the mountains ; they proclaim 

The everlasting creed of liberty. 

That creed is written on the untrampled snow, 
Thundered by torrents which no power can hold, 
Save that of God, when he sends forth his cold. 

And breathed by winds that through the free 
heaven blow. 

Thou, while thy prison walls were dark around, 
Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught, 
And to thy brief captivity was brought 

A vision of thy Switzerland unbound. 

The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened thee 

For the great work to set thy country free. 



TO THE RIVER ARVE. 

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR 
THE FOOT OF MONT BLANC. 

Not from the sands or cloven rocks. 

Thou rapid Arve ! thy waters flow ; 
Nor earth within its bosom, locks 

Thy dark unfathomed wells below. 
Thy springs are in the cloud, thy stream 

Begins to move and murmur first 
Where ice-peaks feel the noonday beam. 

Or rain-storms on the glacier burst. 



TO THE RIVER ARVE. 131 

Born where the thunder and the blast, 

And morning's earliest light are born, 
Thou rushest swoln, and loud, and fast, 

By these low homes, as if in scorn : 
Yet humbler springs yield purer waves ; 

And brighter, glassier streams than thine, 
Sent up from earth's unlighted caves. 

With heaven's own beam and image shine. 



Yet stay ! for here are flowers and trees ; 

Warm rays on cottage roofs are here, 
And laugh of girls, and hum of bees — 

Here linger till thy waves are clear. 
Thou heedest not — thou hastest on ; 

From steep to steep thy torrent falls. 
Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone, 

It rests beneath Geneva's walls. 



Rush on — but were there one with me 

That loved me, I would light my hearth 
Here, where with God's own majesty 

Are touched the features of the earth. 
By these old peaks, white, high, and vast, 

Still rising as the tempests beat, 
Here would I dwell, and sleep, at last, 

Among the blossoms at their feet. 



132 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

INSCRIPTION FOR THE ENTRANCE TO 
A WOOD. 

Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which 
needs 
No school of long experience, that the world 
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen 
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares, 
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood 
And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade 
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze 
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a 

balm 
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here 
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men 
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse 
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth, 
But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to Guilt 
Her pale tormentor. Misery. Hence, these shades 
Are still the abodes of gladness ; the thick roof 
Of green and stirring branches is alive 
And musical with birds, that sing and sport 
In wantonness of spirit ; while below 
The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect, 
Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade 
Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam 
That waked them into life. Even the green trees 
Partake the deep contentment ; as they bend 
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky 
Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene. 
Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy. 
Existence, than the winged plunderer 



" WHEN THE FIRMAMENT QUIVERSr 133 

That sucks its sweets. The massy rocks themselves, 

And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees 

That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude 

Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots, 

With all their earth upon them, twisting high, 

Breathed fixed tranquillity. The rivulet 

Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed 

Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks. 

Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice 

In its own being. Softly tread the marge, 

Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren 

That dips her bill in water. The cool wind, 

That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee 

Like one that loves thee, nor will let thee pass 

Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace. 



" WHEN THE FIRMAMENT QUIVERS 
WITH DAYLIGHT'S YOUNG BEAM:' 

When the firmament quivers with daylight's young 
beam. 
And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn, 
And the glow of the sky blazes back from the 
stream, — 
How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness 
grow dim ! 

Oh, 't is sad, in that moment of glory and song. 
To see, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun, 

The glittering band that kept watch all night long 
O'er Love and o'er Slumber, go out one by one : 



134 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast. 

Scarce glimmers with one of the train that were 
there ; 

And their leader the day-star, the brightest and last, 
Twinkles faintly and fades in that desert of air. 

Thus, Oblivion, from midst of whose shadow we 
came. 
Steals o^er us again when life's twilight is gone ; 
And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven of 
fame, 
Grow pale and are quenched as the years hasten 
on. 

Let them fade — but we '11 pray that the age, in 
whose flight. 
Of ourselves and our friends the remembrance 
shall die. 
May rise o'er the world, with the gladness and light 
Of the dawn that effaces the stars from the sky. 



A SCENE ON THE BANKS OF THE ^ 
HUDSON. 

Cool shades and dews are round my way. 

And silence of the early day ; 

'Mid the dark rocks that watch his bed, 

Glitters the mighty Hudson spread, 

Unrippled, save by drops that fall 

From shrubs that fringe his mountain wall ; 

And o'er the clear still water swells 

The music of the Sabbath bells. 



THE WEST WIND. 135 

All, save this little nook of land 

Circled with trees, on which I stand; 

All, save that line of hills which lie 

Suspended in the mimic sky — 

Seems a blue void, above, below, 

Through which the white clouds come and go ; 

And from the green world's farthest steep 

I gaze into the airy deep. 

Loveliest of lovely things are they. 
On earth, that soonest pass away. 
The rose that lives its little hour. 
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower. 
Even love, long tried and cherished long, 
Becomes more tender and more strong. 
At thought of that insatiate grave 
From which its yearnings cannot save. 

River ! in this still hour thou hast 
Too much of heaven on earth to last ; 
Nor long may thy still waters lie, 
An image of the glorious sky. 
Thy fate and mine are not repose. 
And, ere another evening close. 
Thou to thy tides shalt turn again. 
And I to seek the crowd of men. 



THE WEST WIND. 

Beneath the forest's skirts I rest. 

Whose branching pines rise dark and high. 
And hear the breezes of the West 

Among the threaded foliage sigh. 



136 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Sweet Zephyr why that sound of woe ? 

Is not thy home among the flowers ? 
Do not the bright June roses blow, 

To meet thy kiss at morning hours ? 

And lo ! thy glorious realm outspread — 
Yon stretching valleys, green and gay, 

And yon free hill-tops, o^er whose head 
The loose white clouds are borne away. 

And there the full broad river runs. 

And many a fount wells fresh and sweet, 

To cool thee when the midday suns 

Have made thee faint beneath their heat. 



Thou wind of joy, and youth, and love ; 

Spirit of the new wakened year ! 
The sun in his blue realm above 

Smooths a bright path when thou art here. 

In lawns the murmuring bee is heard, 
The wooing ring-dove in the shade ; 

On thy soft breath, the new-fledged bird 
Takes wing, half happy, half afraid. 

Ah ! thou art like our wayward race ; — 

When not a shade of pain or ill 
Dims the bright smile of Nature's face, 

Thou lov'st to sigh and murmur still. 



TO A MOSQUITO. I37 



TO A MOSQUITO. 

Fair insect ! that, with threadlike legs spread out, 
And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing. 

Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about. 
In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing, 

And tell how little our large veins should bleed, 

Would we but yield them to thy bitter need. 

Unwillingly, I own, and, what is worse. 
Full angrily, men hearken to thy plaint, 

Thou gettest many a brush, and many a curse, 

For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and 
faint : 

Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, 

Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could. 

I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween. 
Has not the honor of so proud a birth. 

Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green. 
The offspring of the gods, though born on earth ; 

For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she. 

The ocean nymph, that nursed thy infancy. 

Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung, 

And when, at length, thy gauzy wings grew 
strong. 

Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung. 
Rose in the sky and bore thee soft along : 

The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way, 

And danced and shone beneath, the billowy bay. 



13S BRYANT'S POEMS. 

And calm, afar, the city spires arose, — 

Thence didst thou hear the distant hum of men, 

And as its grateful odors met thy nose, 

Didst seem to smell thy native marsh again ; 

Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sight 

Thy tiny song grew shriller with delight. 

At length thy pinions fluttered in Broadway — 

Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks 
kissed 
By wanton airs, and eyes whose killing ray 

Shone through the snowy veils like stars through 
mist; 
And fresh as morn, on many a cheek and chin, 
Bloomed the bright blood through the transparent 
skin. 

Oh, these were sights to touch an anchorite ! 

What ! do I hear thy slender voice complain ? 
Thou wailest, when I talk of beauty's light, 

As if it brought the memory of pain : 
Thou art a wayward being — well — come near, 
And pour thy tale of sorrow in my ear. 

What say'st thou — slanderer! — rouge makes thee 
sick? 

And China bloom at best is sorry food ? 
And Rowland's Kalydor, if laid on thick, 

Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood? 
Go ! 't was a just reward that met thy crime — 
But shun the sacrilege another time. 



TO A MOSQUITO. 139 

That bloom was made to look at, not to touch. 
To worship, not approach, that radiant white ; 

And well might sudden vengeance light on such 
As dared, like thee, most impiously to bite. 

Thou shouldst have gazed at distance and admired, 

Murmured thy adoration and retired. 

Thou 'rt welcome to the town — but why come here 
To bleed a brother poet gaunt like thee ? 

Alas ! the little blood I have is dear, 

And thin will be the banquet drawn from me. 

Look round — the pale-eyed sisters in my cell, 

Thy old acquaintance. Song and Famine, dwell. 

Try some plump alderman, and suck the blood 
Enriched by generous wine and costly meat ; 

On well-filled skins, sleek as thy native mud. 
Fix thy light pump and press thy freckled feet : 

Go to the men for whom, in ocean's halls. 

The oyster breeds, and the green turtle sprawls. 



There corks are drawn y and the red vintage flows 
To fill the swelling veins for thee, and now 

The ruddy cheek and now the ruddier nose 
Shall tempt thee, as thou flittest round the 
brow ; 

And, when the hour of sleep its quiet brings, 

No angry hand shall rise to brush thy wings. 



I40 BRYANT^S POEMS. 

*'/ broke the spell that held me 
long:' 

I BROKE the spell that held me long, 

The dear, dear witchery of song. 

I said, the poef s idle lore 

Shall waste my prime of years no more, 

For Poetry, though heavenly born. 

Consorts with poverty and scorn. 

I broke the spell — nor deemed its power 

Could fetter me another hour. 

Ah, thoughtless ! how could I forget 

Its causes were around me yet ? 

For wheresoe'er I looked, the while, 

Was Nature's everlasting smile. 

Still came and lingered on my sight 

Of flowers and streams the bloom and light, 

And glory of the stars and sun ; — 

And these and poetry are one. 

They, ere the world had held me long. 

Recalled me to the love of song. 



THE CONJUNCTION OF JUPITER AND 
VENUS. 

I WOULD not always reason. The straight path 
Wearies us with its never- varying lines, 
And we grow melancholy. I would make 
Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit 



JUPITER AND VENUS. 141 

Patiently by the wayside, while I traced 

The mazes of the pleasant wilderness 

Around me. She should be my counsellor, 

But not my tyrant. For the spirit needs 

Impulses from a deeper source than hers, 

And there are motions, in the mind of man, 

That she must look upon with awe. I bow 

Reverently to her dictates, but not less 

Hold to the fair illusions of old time — 

Illusions that shed brightness over life, 

And glory over nature. Look, even now. 

Where two bright planets in the twilight meet, 

Upon the saffron heaven, — the imperial star 

Of Jove, and she that from her radiant urn 

Pours forth the light of love. Let me believe, 

Awhile, that they are met for ends of good. 

Amid the evening glory, to confer 

Of men and their aifairs, and to shed down 

Kind influence. Lo ! their orbs burn more bright, 

And shake out softer fires ! The great earth feels 

The gladness and the quiet of the time. 

Meekly the mighty river, that infolds 

This mighty city, smooths his front, and far 

Glitters and burns even to the rocky base 

Of the dark heights that bound him to the West ; 

And a deep murmur, from the many streets, 

Rises like a thanksgiving. Put we hence 

Dark and sad thoughts awhile — there 's time for 

them 
Hereafter — on the morrow we will meet, 
With melancholy looks, to tell our griefs. 
And make each other wretched ; this calm hour, 



142 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

This balmy, blessed evening, we will give 
To cheerful hopes and dreams of happy days, 
Born of the meeting of those glorious stars. 

Enough of drought has parched the year, and 
scared 
The land with dread of famine. Autumn, yet. 
Shall make men glad with unexpected fruits. 
The dog-star shall shine harmless ; genial days 
Shall softly glide away into the keen 
And wholesome cold of winter ; he that fears 
The pestilence, shall gaze on those pure beams, 
And breathe, with confidence, the quiet air. 

Emblems of power and beauty ! well may they 
Shine brightest on our borders, and withdraw 
Toward the great Pacific, marking out 
The path of empire. Thus, in our own land, 
Erelong, the better Genius of our race. 
Having encompassed earth, and tamed its tribes. 
Shall sit him down beneath the farthest West, 
By the shore of that calm ocean, and look back 
On realms made happy. 

Light the nuptial torch, 
And say the glad, yet solemn rite, that knits 
The youth and maiden. Happy days to them 
That wed this evening ! — a long life of love. 
And blooming sons and daughters ! Happy they 
Born at this hour, — for they shall see an age 
Whiter and holier than the past, and go 
Late to their graves. Men shall wear softer hearts, 



JUPITER AND VENUS. 143 

And shudder at the butcheries of war, 
As now at other murders. 

Hapless Greece ! 
Enough of blood has wet thy rocks, and stained 
Thy rivers ; deep enough thy chains have worn 
Their links into thy flesh ; the sacrifice 
Of thy pure maidens, and thy innocent babes. 
And reverend priests, has expiated all 
Thy crimes of old. In yonder mingling lights 
There is an omen of good days for thee. 
Thou shalt arise from 'midst the dust and sit 
Again among the nations. Thine own arm 
Shall yet redeem thee. Not in wars like thine 
The world takes part. Be it a strife of kings, — 
Despot with despot battling for a throne, — 
And Europe shall be stirred throughout her realms, 
Nations shall put on harness, and shall fall 
Upon each other, and in all their bounds 
The wailing of the childless shall not cease. 
Thine is a war for liberty, and thou 
Must fight it single-handed. The old world 
Looks coldly on the murderers of thy race. 
And leaves thee to the struggle ; and the new, — 
I fear me thou couldst tell a shameful tale 
Of fraud and lust of gain ; — thy treasury drained, 
And Missolonghi fallen. Yet thy wrongs 
Shall put new strength into thy heart and hand. 
And God and thy good sword shall yet work out, 
For thee, a terrible deliverance. 



144 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



JUNE. 

I GAZED upon the glorious sky 

And the green mountains round ; 
And thought, that when I came to lie 

Within the silent ground, 
'T were pleasant, that in flowery June, 
When brooks sent up a cheerful tune, 

And groves a joyous sound, 
The sexton's hand, my grave to make. 
The rich, green mountain turf should break. 

A cell within the frozen mould, 

A coffin borne through sleet. 
And icy clods above it rolled, 

While fierce the tempests beat — 
Away ! — I will not think of these — 
Blue be the sky and soft the breeze, 

Earth green beneath the feet. 
And be the damp mould gently pressed 
Into my narrow place of rest. 

There, through the long, long summer hours 

The golden light should lie, 
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers 

Stand in their beauty by. 
The oriole should build and tell 
His love-tale, close beside my cell ; 

The idle butterfly 
Should rest him there, and there be heard 
The housewife bee and humming-bird. 



JUNE. 145 

And what if cheerful shouts, at noon, 

Come from the village sent, 
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon, 

With fairy laughter blent? 
And what if, in the evening light, 
Betrothed lovers walk in sight 

Of my low monument? 
I would the lovely scene around 
Might know no sadder sight or sound. 

I know, I know I should not see 

The season's glorious show, 
Nor would its brightness shine for me, 

Nor its wild music flow ; 
But if, around my place of sleep. 
The friends I love should come to weep. 

They might not haste to go. 
Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom. 
Should keep them lingering by my tomb. 

These to their softened hearts should bear 

The thought of what has been. 
And speak of one who cannot share 

The gladness of the scene ; 
Whose part, in all the pomp that fills 
The circuit of the summer hills. 

Is — that his grave is green ; 
And deeply would their hearts rejoice 
To hear, again, his living voice. 



146 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



THE TWO GRAVES. 

'T IS a bleak wild hill, — but green and bright 
In the summer warmth, and the midday light ; 
There 's the hum of the bee and the chirp of the 

wren, 
And the dash of the brook from the alder glen ; 
There 's the sound of a bell from the scattered flock, 
And the shade of the beech lies cool on the rock. 
And fresh from the west is the free wind's breath — 
There is nothing here that speaks of death. 

Far yonder, where orchards and gardens lie, 
And dwellings cluster, 't is there men die. 
They are born, they die, and are buried near, 
Where the populous graveyard lightens the bier ; 
For strict and close are the ties that bind 
In death, the children of human kind ; 
Yea, stricter and closer than those of life, — 
iT is a neighborhood that knows no strife. 
They are noiselessly gathered — friend and foe — 
To the still and dark assemblies below : 
Without a frown or a smile they meet. 
Each pale and calm in his winding-sheet ; 
In that sullen home of peace and gloom. 
Crowded, like guests in a banquet-room. 

Yet there are graves in this lonely spot, 
Two humble graves, — but I meet them not. 
I have seen them, — eighteen years are past. 
Since I found their place in the brambles last, — 



THE TWO GRAVES. HT 

The place where, fifty winters ago, 

An aged man in his locks of snow. 

And an aged matron, withered with years, 

Were solemnly laid, — but not with tears. 

For none who sat by the light of their hearth, 

Beheld their coffins covered with earth ; 

Their kindred were far, and their children dead, 

When the funeral prayer was coldly said. 

Two low green hillocks, two small gray stones. 
Rose over the place that held their bones ; 
But the grassy hillocks are levelled again, 
And the keenest eye might search in vain, 
'Mong briers, and ferns, and paths of sheep. 
For the spot where the aged couple sleep. 

Yet well might they lay, beneath the soil 
Of this lonely spot, that man of toil. 
And trench the strong hard mould with the spade, 
Where never before a grave was made ; 
For he hewed the dark old woods away. 
And gave the virgin fields to the day, — 
And the gourd and the bean, beside his door. 
Bloomed where their flowers ne'er opened before : 
And the maize stood up, and the bearded rye 
Bent low in the breath of an unknown sky. 

^T is said that when life is ended here, 
The spirit is borne to a distant sphere ; 
That it visits its earthly home no more. 
Nor looks on the haunts it loved before. 
But why should the bodiless soul be sant 



148 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Far off, to a long, long banishment? 

Talk not of the light and the living green ! 

It will pine for the dear familiar scene ; 

It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to behold 

The rock and the stream it knew of old. 

'T is a cruel creed, believe it not ! 
Death to the good is a milder lot. 
They are here, — they are here, — that harmless pair, 
In the yellow sunshine and flowing air, 
In the light cloud-shadows, that slowly pass. 
In the sounds that rise from the murmuring grass. 
They sit where their humble cottage stood. 
They walk by the waving edge of the wood. 
And list to the long accustomed flow 
Of the brook that wets the rocks below. 
Patient, and peaceful, and passionless, 
As seasons on seasons swiftly press, 
They watch, and wait, and linger around, 
Till the day when their bodies shall leave the ground. 



THE NEW MOON. 

When, as the garish day is done, 
Heaven burns with the descended sun, 

'T is passing sweet to mark, 
Amid that flush of crimson light. 
The new moon's modest bow grow bright, 

As earth and sky grow dark. 



THE NEW MOON. 149 

Few are the hearts too cold to feel 
A thrill of gladness o'er them steal. 

When first the wandering eye 
Sees faintly, in the evening blaze. 
That glimmering curve of tender rays 

Just planted in the sky. 

The sight of that young crescent brings 
Thoughts of all fair and youthful things — > 

The hopes of early years ; 
And childhood's purity and grace, 
And joys that like a rainbow chase 

The passing shower of tears. 

The captive yields him to the dream 
Of freedom, when that virgin beam 

Comes out upon the air ; 
And painfully the sick man tries 
To fix his dim and burning eyes 

On the soft promise there. 

Most welcome to the lover's sight, 
Glitters that pure, emerging light ; 

For prattling poets say 
That sweetest is the lovers' walk, 
And tenderest is their murmured talk, 

Beneath its gentle ray. 

And there do graver men behold 
A type of errors, loved of old, 

Forsaken and forgiven ; 
And thoughts and wishes not of earth, 
Just opening in their early birth. 

Like that new light in heaven. 



150 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



THE GLADNESS OF NATURE. 

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, 
When our mother Nature laughs around ; 

When even the deep blue heavens look glad, 

And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground ? 

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, 
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky ; 

The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den, 
And the wilding bee hums merrily by. 

The clouds are at play in the azure space. 

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale, 

And here they stretch to the frolic chase. 
And there they roll on the easy gale. 

There 's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower, 
There 's a titter of winds in that beechen tree. 

There 's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower. 
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea. 

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles 
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray, 

On the leaping waters and gay young isles ; 
Ay, look, and he '11 smile thy gloom away. 



TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN. 15 1 



TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN. 

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
And colored with the heaven's own blue, 
That openest, when the quiet light 
Succeeds the keen and frosty night. 

Thou comest not when violets lean 
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
Or columbines, in purple dressed, 
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. 

Thou waitest late, and com'st alone. 
When woods are bare and birds are flown. 
And frosts and shortening days portend 
The aged year is near his end. 

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
Look through its fringes to the sky. 
Blue — blue — as if that sky let fall 
A flower from its cerulean wall. 

I would that thus, when I shall see 
The hour of death draw near to me, 
Hope, blossoming within my heart, 
May look to heaven as I depart. 



152 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

''tnnocent child and snow-white 
flower:' 

Innocent child and snow-white flower ! 
Well are ye paired in your opening hour. 
Thus should the pure and the lovely meet, 
Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet. 

White as those leaves, just blown apart, 
Are the folds of thy own young heart ; 
Guilty passion and cankering care 
Never have left their traces there. 

Artless one ! though thou gazest now 
O'er the white blossom with earnest brow. 
Soon will it tire thy childish eye. 
Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by. 

Throw it aside in thy weary hour. 
Throw to the ground the fair white flower. 
Yet, as thy tender years depart. 
Keep that white and innocent heart. 



SONNET— MIDSUMMER. 

A POWER is on the earth and in the air, 
From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid. 
And shelters him, in nooks of deepest shade. 

From the hot steam and from the fiery glare. 




"Innocent child and snow-Avhite flower!" 



SONNET— OCTOBER. 153 

Look forth upon the earth — her thousand plants 
Are smittten, even the dark sun-loving maize 
Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze ; 

The herd beside the shaded fountain pants ; 

For life is driven from all the landscape brown ; 
The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den, 
The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men 

Drop by the sun-stroke in the populous town ; 
As if the Day of Fire had dawned and set 
Its deadly breath into the firmament. 



SONNET— OCTOBER. 

Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath ! 
When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf. 
And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, 

And the year smiles as it draws near its death. 

Wind of the sunny south ! oh, still delay 
In the gay woods and in the golden air, 
Like to a good old age released from care. 

Journeying, in long serenity, away. 

In such a bright, late quiet, would that I 

Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and 

brooks, 
And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks. 

And music of kind voices ever nigh ; 

And when my last sand twinkled in the glass. 
Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass. 



154 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

SONNET— NO VEMBER. 

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun ! 

One mellow smile through the soft vapory air, 
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run. 

Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare. 
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees. 

And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are 
cast, 
And the blue Gentian flower, that, in the breeze, 

Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. 
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee 

Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way, 
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, 

And man delight to linger in thy ray. 
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear 
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened 
air. 



A MEDITATION ON RHODE ISLAND COAL. 

Decolor, obscurus, vilis, non ille repexam 
Caesariem regum, non Candida virginis ornat 
Colla, nee insigni splendet per cingula morsu. 
Sed nova si nigri videas miracula saxi, 
Tunc superat pulchros cultus et quicquid Eois 
Indus litoribus rubra scrutatur in alga. 

Claudian. 

I SAT beside the glowing grate, fresh heaped 

With Newport coal, and as the flame grew 
bright — 



A MEDITATION ON R.I COAL. 155 

The many-colored flame — and played and leaped, 

I thought of rainbows and the northern light, 
Moore's Lalla Rookh, the Treasury Report, 
And other brilliant matters of the sort. 

And last I thought of that fair isle which sent 
. The mineral fuel ; on a summer day 
I saw it once, with heat and travel spent, 

And scratched by dwarf-oaks in the hollow way ; 
Now dragged through sand, now jolted over stone — 
A rugged road through rugged Tiverton. 



And hotter grew the air, and hollower grew 

The deep-worn path, and horror-struck, I thought. 

Where will this dreary passage lead me to ? — 
This long, dull road, so narrow, deep, and hot? 

I looked to see it dive in earth outright ; 

I looked — but saw a far more welcome sight. 

Like a soft mist upon the evening shore. 

At once a lovely isle before me lay ; 
Smooth, and with tender verdure covered o'er. 

As if just risen from its calm inland bay; 
Sloped each way gently to the grassy edge. 
And the small waves that dallied with the sedgfe. 

The barley was just reaped — its heavy sheaves 
Lay on the stubble field — the tall maize stood 

Dark in its summer growth, and shook its leaves — 
And bright the sunlight played on the young 
wood — 

For fifty years ago, the old men say, 

The Briton hewed their ancient groves away. 



156 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

I saw where fountains freshened the green land, 
And where the pleasant road, from door to door. 

With rows of cherry-trees on either hand, 
Went wandering all that fertile region o'er — 

Rogue's Island once — but, when the rogues were 
dead, 

Rhode Island was the name it took instead. 

Beautiful island ! then it only seemed 
A lovely stranger — it has grown a friend. 

I gazed on its smooth slopes, but never dreamed 
How soon that bright beneficent isle would send 

The treasures of its womb across the sea. 

To warm a poefs room and boil his tea. 

Dark anthracite ! that reddenest on my hearth. 
Thou in those island mines didst slumber long ; 

But now thou art come forth to move the earth. 
And put to shame the men that mean thee wrong. 

Thou shalt be coals of fire to those that hate thee, 

And warm the shins of all that underrate thee. 

Yea, they did wrong thee foully — they who mocked 
Thy honest face, and said thou wouldst not burn ; 

Of hewing thee to chimney-pieces talked, 

And grew profane — and swore, in bitter scorn. 

That men might to thy inner caves retire. 

And there, unsinged, abide the day of fire. 

Yet is thy greatness nigh. I pause to state, 

That I too have seen greatness — even I — 
Shook hands with Adams — stared at La Fayette, 



A MEDITATION ON R. L COAL. 157 

When, bareheaded, in the hot noon of July, 
He would not let the umbrella be held o'er him, 
From which three cheers burst from the mob before 
him. 

And I have seen — not many months ago — 

An eastern Governor in chapeau bras 
And military coat, a glorious show ! 

Ride forth to visit the reviews, and ah ! 
How oft he smiled and bowed to Jonathan ! 
How many hands were shook and votes were won ! 

'T was a great Governor — thou too shalt be 

Great in thy turn — and wide shall spread thy 
fame, 

And swiftly ; farthest Maine shall hear of thee. 
And cold New Brunswick gladden at thy name, 

And, faintly through its sleets, the weeping isle 

That sends the Boston folks their cod shall smile. 

For thou shalt forge vast railways, and shalt heat 
The hissing rivers into steam, and drive 

Huge masses from thy mines, on iron feet. 
Walking their steady way, as if alive, 

Northward, till everlasting ice besets thee. 

And south as far as the grim Spaniard lets thee. 

Thou shalt make mighty engines swim the sea. 
Like its own monsters — boats that for a guinea, 

Will take a man to Havre — and shalt be 
The moving soul of many a spinning-jenny. 

And ply thy shuttles, till a bard can wear 

As good a suit of broadcloth as the mayor. 



158 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Then we will laugh at winter when we hear 
The grim old churl about our dwellings rave : 

Thou, from that " ruler of the inverted year,^' 
Shalt pluck the knotty sceptre Cowper gave, 

And pull him from his sledge, and drag him in, 

And melt the icicles from off his chin. 



AN INDIAN AT THE BURIAL-PLACE OF 
HIS FATHERS. 

It is the spot I came to seek, — 

My fathers' ancient burial-place, 
Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak, 

Withdrew our wasted race. 
It is the spot, — I know it well — 
Of which our old traditions tell. 

For here the upland bank sends out 

A ridge toward the river-side ; 
I know the shaggy hills about, 

The meadows smooth and wide, 
The plains, that, toward the southern sky, 
Fenced east and west by mountains lie. 

A white man, gazing on the scene. 
Would say a lovely spot was here. 

And praise the lawns, so fresh and green, 
Between the hills so sheer, 

I like it not — I would the plain 

Lay in its tall old groves again. 



AN INDIAN BURIAL-PLACE. 159 

The sheep are on the slopes around, 

The cattle in the meadows feed, 
And laborers turn the crumbling ground, 

Or drop the yellow seed, 
And prancing steeds, in trappings gay, 
Whirl the bright chariot o'er the way. 

Methinks it were a nobler sight 

To see these vales in woods arrayed, 

Their summits in the golden light, 
Their trunks in grateful shade. 

And herds of deer, that bounding go 

O'er rills and prostrate trees below. 

And then to mark the lord of all. 

The forest hero, trained to wars, 
Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall, 

And seamed with glorious scars. 
Walk forth, amid his reign, to dare 
The wolf, and grapple with the bear. 

This bank, in which the dead were laid, 
Was sacred when its soil was ours ; 

Hither the artless Indian maid 

Brought wreaths of beads and flowers, 

And the gray chief and gifted seer 

Worshipped the god of thunders here. 

But now the wheat is green and high 
On clods that hid the warrior's breast. 

And scattered in the furrows lie ' 

The weapons of his rest. 

And there, in the loose sand, is thrown 

Of his large arm the mouldering bone. 



i6o BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Ah, little thought the strong and brave, 
Who bore the lifeless chieftain forth ; 

Or the young wife, that weeping gave 
Her first-born to the earth, 

That the pale race, who waste us now, 

Among their bones should guide the plough. 

They waste us — ay — like April snow 
In the warm noon, we shrink away ; 

And fast they follow, as we go 
Towards the setting day, — 

Till they shall fill the land, and we 

Are driven into the western sea. 

But I behold a fearful sign, 

To which the white men's eyes are blind ; 
Their race may vanish hence, like mine, 

And leave no trace behind, 
Save ruins o'er the region spread, 
And the white stones above the dead. 

Before these fields were shorn and tilled, 
Full to the brim our rivers flowed ; 

The melody of waters filled 

The fresh and boundless wood ; 

And torrents dashed and rivulets played. 

And fountains spouted in the shade. 

Those grateful sounds are heard no more, 
The springs are silent in the sun. 

The rivers, by the blackened shore. 
With lessening current run ; 

The realm our tribes are crushed to get 

May be a barren desert yet. 



SONNET— TO COLE, THE PAINTER. i6i 

SONNET— TO COLE, THE PAINTER, 
DEPARTING FOR EUROPE. 

Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies : 
Yet, Cole ! thy heart shall bear to Europe's strand 
A living image of thy native land, 

Such as on thy glorious canvas lies. 

Lone lakes — savannas where the bison roves — 

Rocks rich with summer garlands — solemn 

streams — 

Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and 
screams, — 

Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves. 

Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest — fair. 
But different — everywhere the trace of men, 
Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen 

To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air. 
Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight, 
But keep that earlier, wilder image bright. 



GREEN RIVER. 



When breezes are soft and skies are fair, 
I steal an hour from study and care. 
And hie me away to the woodland scene, 
Where wanders the stream with waters of green 
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink, 
Had given their stain to the wave they drink ; 
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through. 
Have named the stream from its own fair hue. 



1 62 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Yet pure its waters — its shallows are bright 
With colored pebbles and sparkles of light, 
And clear the depths where its eddies play, 
And dimples deepen and whirl away, 
And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot 
The swifter current that mines its root, 
Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill, 
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill. 
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown, 
Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone. 
Oh, loveliest there the spring days come. 
With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum ; 
The flowers of summer are fairest there, 
And freshest the breath of the summer air ; 
And sweetest the golden autumn day 
In silence and sunshine glides away. 

Yet fair as thou ait, thou shun'st to glide, 
Beautiful stream ! by the village side ; 
But windest away from haunts of men, 
To quiet valley and shaded glen ; 
And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill. 
Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still. 
Lonely — save when, by thy rippling tides. 
From thicket to thicket the angler glides ; 
Or the simpler comes with basket and book. 
For herbs of power on thy banks to look ; 
Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me. 
To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee. 
Still — save the chirp of birds that feed 
On the river cherry and seedy reed. 
And thy own wild music gushing out 



- GREEN RIVER. 163 

With mellow murmur and fairy shout, 
From dawn to the blush of another day, 
Like traveller singing along his way. 

That fairy music I never hear, 
Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear, 
And mark them winding away from sight, 
Darkened with shade or flashing with light, 
While o'er them the vine to its thicket clings, 
And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings. 
But I wish that fate had left me free 
To wander these quiet haunts with thee, 
Till the eating cares of earth should depart. 
And the peace of the scene pass into my heart ; 
But I envy thy stream, as it glides along, 
Through its beautiful banks in a trance of song. 

Though forced to drudge for the dregs of men, 
And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, 
And mingle among the jostling crowd. 
Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud — 
I often come to this quiet place. 
To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face, 
And gaze upon thee in silent dream, 
For in thy lonely and lovely stream, 
An image of that calm life appears, 
That won my heart in my greener years. 



164 BRYANT'S poems! 



TO A CLOUD. 

Beautiful cloud ! with folds so soft and fair, 

Swimming in the pure quiet air ! 

Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below 

Thy shadow o"er the vale moves slow ; 

Where, midst their labor, pause the reaper train 

As cool it comes along the grain. 

Beautiful cloud ! I would I were with thee 

In thy calm way o'er land and sea : 

To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look 

On Earth as on an open book ; 

On streams that tie her realms with silver bands, 

And the long ways that seam her lands ; 

And hear her humming cities, and the sound 

Of the great ocean breaking round. 

Ay — I would sail upon thy air-borne car 

To blooming regions distant far. 

To where the sun of Andalusia shines 

On his own olive-groves and vines, 

Or the soft lights of Italy''s bright sky 

In smiles upon her ruins lie. 

But I would woo the winds to let us rest 

O^'er Greece long fettered and oppressed, 

Whose sons at length have heard the call that comes 

From the old battlefields and tombs, 

And risen, and drawn the sword, and on the foe 

Have dealt the swift and desperate blow, 

And the Othman power is cloven, and the stroke 

Has touched its chains, and they are broke. 



AFTER A TEMPEST. 165 

Ay, we would linger till the sunset there 
Should come, to purple all the air. 
And thou reflect upon the sacred ground 
The ruddy radiance streaming round. 

Bright meteor ! for the summer noontide made ! 

Thy peerless beauty yet shall fade. 

The sun, that fills with light each glistening fold. 

Shall set, and leave thee dark and cold : 

The blast shall rend thy skirts, or thou may'st frown 

In the dark heaven when storms come down. 

And weep in rain, till man's inquiring eye 

Miss thee, forever, from the sky. 



AFTER A TEMPEST. 

The day had been a day of wind and storm ; — 

The wind was laid, the storm was over-past, — 
And stooping from the zenith, bright and warm 

Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last. 

I stood upon the upland slope, and cast 
My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene, 

Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast. 
And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green, 
With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between. 

The rain-drops glistened on the trees around, 

Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirred, 

Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground, 
Was shaken by the flight of startled bird ; 
For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard 



1 66 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

About the flowers ; the cheerful rivulet sung 
And gossiped, as he hastened ocean-ward ; 
To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung, 
And chirping from the ground the grasshopper up- 
sprung. 

And from beneath the leaves that kept them dry 

Flew many a glittering insect here and there. 
And darted up and down the butterfly. 

That seemed a living blossom of the air. 

The flocks came scattering from the thicket, where 
The violent rain had pent them ; in the way 

Strolled groups of damsels frolicsome and fair ; 
The farmer swung the scythe or turned the hay. 
And 'twixt the heavy swaths his children were at play. 

It was a scene of peace — and, like a spell, 

Did that serene and golden sunlight fall 
Upon the motionless wood that clothed the fell, 

And precipice upspringing like a wall. 

And glassy river and white waterfall. 
And happy living things that trod the bright 

And beauteous scene ; while far beyond them all, 
On many a lovely valley, out of sight. 
Was poured from the blue heavens the same soft 
golden light. 

I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene 
An emblem of the peace that yet shall be, 

When, o^er earth''s continents and isles between. 
The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea, 
And married nations dwell in harmony ; 



THE BURIAL-PLACE— A FRAGMENT. 167 

When millions, crouching in the dust to one, 

No more shall beg their lives on bended knee, 
Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sun 
The o'erlabored captive toil, and wish his life were 
done. 

Too long, at clash of arms amid her bowers 
And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast, 

The fair earth, that should only blush with flowers 
And ruddy fruits ; but not for aye can last 
The storm, and sweet the sunshine when 't is past. 

Lo, the clouds roll away — they break — they fly. 
And, like the glorious light of summer, cast 

O'er the wide landscape from the embracing sky, 

On all the peaceful world the smile of heaven shall lie. 



THE BURIAL-PLACE — A FRAGMENT. 

Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our sires 
Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades 
Or blossoms ; and indulgent to the strong 
And natural dread of man's last home, the grave, 
Its frost and silence — they disposed around. 
To soothe the melancholy spitit that dwelt 
Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues 
Of vegetable beauty. — There the yew. 
Green even amid the snows of winter, told 
Of immortality, and gracefully 
The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped ; 
And there the gadding woodbine crept about. 



1 68 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

And there the ancient ivy. From the spot 
Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming years, 
Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands 
That trembled as they placed her there, the rose 
Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better spoke 
Her graces, than the proudest monument. 
And children set about their playmate's grave 
The pansy. On the infant's little bed, 
Wet at its planting with maternal tears, 
Emblem of early sweetness, early death. 
Nestled the lowly primrose. Childless dames, 
And maids that would not raise the reddened eye, — 
Orphans, from whose young lids the light of joy 
Fled early, — silent lovers, who had given 
All that they lived for to the arms of earth, 
Came often, o'er the recent graves to strew 
Their offerings, rue, and rosemary, and flowers. 
The pilgrim bands who passed the sea to keep 
Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone, 
In his wide temple of the wilderness. 
Brought not these simple customs of the heart 
With them. It might be, while they laid their dead 
By the vast solemn skirts of the old groves. 
And the fresh virgin soil poured forth strange flowers 
About their graves ; and the familiar sliades 
Of their own native isle, and wonted blooms. 
And herbs were wanting, which the pious hand 
Might plant or scatter there, these gentle rites 
Passed out of use. Now they are scarcely known, 
And rarely in our borders may you meet 
The tall larch, sighing in the burying-place. 
Or willow, trailing low its boughs to hide 



THE YELLOW VIOLET. 169 

The gleaming marble. Naked rows of graves 

And melancholy ranks of monuments 

Are seen instead, where the coarse grass, between, 

Shoots up its dull green spikes, and in the wind 

Hisses, and the neglected bramble nigh, 

Olfers its berries to the school-boy's hand, 

In vain — they grow too near the dead. Yet here, 

Nature, rebuking the neglect of man, 

Plants often, by the ancient mossy stone. 

The briar rose, and upon the broken turf 

That clothes the fresher grave, the strawberry vine 

Sprinkles its swell with blossoms, and lays forth 

Her ruddy, pouting fruit. ... 



THE YELLOW VIOLET. 

When beechen buds begin to swell, 

And woods the blue-bird's warble know, 

The yellow violet's modest bell 

Peeps from the last year's leaves below. 

Ere russet fields their green resume. 
Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare. 

To meet thee, when thy faint perfume 
Alone is in the virgin air. 

Of all her train, the hands of Spring 
First plant thee in the watery mould, 

And I have seen thee blossoming 
Beside the snow-bank's edoes cold. 



lyo BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Thy parent sun, who bade thee view- 
Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip, 

Has bathed thee in his own bright hue. 
And streaked with jet thy glowing lip. 

Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat, 
And earthward bent thy gentle eye, 

Unapt the passing view to meet, 

When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh. 

Oft, in the sunless April day, 

Thy early smile has stayed my walk. 

But 'midst the gorgeous blooms of May, 
I passed thee on thy humble stalk. 

So they, who climb to wealth, forget 
The friends in darker fortunes tried. 

I copied them — but I regret 

That I should ape the ways of pride. 

And when again the genial hour 
Awakes the painted tribes of light, 

r 11 not overlook the modest flower 
That made the woods of April bright. 



''/ CANNOT FORGET WITH WHAT 
FERVID devotion:' 

I CANNOT forget with what fervid devotion 
I worshipped the visions of verse and of fame : 

Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean, 
To my kindled emotions, was wind over flame. 



" / CAiVNO T FOR GET.'' 171 

And deep were my musings in life's early blossom, 
'Mid the twilight of mountain groves wandering 
long; 
How thrilled my young veins, and how throbbed my 
full bosom, 
When o'er me descended the spirit of song. 

'Mong the deep-cloven fells that for ages had listened 

To the rush of the pebble-paved river between, 
Where the kingfisher screamed and gray precipice 
glistened, 
All breathless with awe have I gazed on the 
scene ; 

Till I felt the dark power o'er my reveries stealing. 
From his throne in the depth of that stern soli- 
tude, 
And he breathed through my lips, in that tempest 
of feeling, 
Strains warm with his spirit, though artless and 
rude. 

Bright visions ! I mixed with the world and ye 
faded ; 

No longer your pure rural worshipper now ; 
In the haunts your continual presence pervaded, 

Ye shrink from the signet of care on my brow. 

In the old mossy groves on the breast of the moun- 
tain, 
In deep lonely glens where the waters complain, 
By the shade of the rock, by the gush of the foun- 
tain, 
I seek your loved footsteps, but seek them in vain. 



172 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Oh, leave not, forlorn and forever forsaken, 
Your pupil and victim, to life and its tears ! 

But sometimes return, and in mercy awaken 
The glories ye showed to his earlier years. 



LINES ON REVISITING THE COUNTRY. 

I STAND ugon my native hills again. 

Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky 
With garniture of waving grass and grain, 

Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie. 
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between, 
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen. 

A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near, 
And ever restless feet of one, who, now. 

Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year ; 
There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow, 

As breaks the varied scene upon her sight. 

Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light. 

For I have taught her, with delighted eye, 
To gaze upon the mountains, to behold. 

With deep affection, the pure ample sky. 
And clouds along its blue abysses rolled. 

To love the song of waters, and to hear 

The melody of winds with charmed ear. 

Here I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat. 

Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air; 
And where the season's milder fervors beat, 



SONNE T— MUTA TION 1 7 3 

And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear 
The song of bird, and sound of running stream, 
Am come awhile to wander and to dream. 

Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun ! thou canst not wake, 
In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen. 

The maize leaf and the maple bough but take, 
From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green. 

The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray, 

Sweeps the blue streams of pestilence away. 

The mountain wind ! most spiritual thing of all 
The wide earth knows — when, in the sultry time, 

He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall, 
He seems the breath of a celestial clime ; 

As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow, 

Health and refreshment on the world below. 



SONNET— mutation: 

They talk of short-lived pleasure — be it so — 

Pain dies as quickly : stern, hard-featured pain 
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. 

The fiercest agonies have shortest reign ; 

And after dreams of horror, comes again 
The welcome morning with its rays of peace. 

Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain, 
Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease : 
Remorse is virtue's root ; its fair increase 

Are fruits of innocence and blessedness ; 



174 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Thus joy, overborne and bound, doth still release 
His young limbs from the chains that round him 

press. 
Weep not that the world changes — did it keep 
A stable changeless state, ''t were cause indeed to 

weep. 



HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. 

The sad and solemn night 
Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires ; 

The glorious host of light 
Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires ; 
All through her silent watches, gliding slow, 
Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, 
and go. 

Day, too, hath many a star 
To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they : 

Through the blue fields afar. 
Unseen, they follow in his flaming way : 
Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim, 
Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him. 

And thou dost see them rise, 
Star of the Pole ! and thou dost see them set. 

Alone, in thy cold skies, 
Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, 
Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train, 
Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main. 




The twenty-second of December. 



HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. 175 

There, at morn's rosy birth, 
Tiiou lookest meekly through the kindling air, 

And eve, that round the earth 
Chases the day, beholds thee watching there ; 
There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls 
The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure 
walls. 

Alike, beneath thine eye, 
The deeds of darkness and of light are done ; 

High toward the star-lit sky 
Towns blaze — the smoke of battle blots the sun — 
The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud — 
And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and 
cloud. 

On thy unaltering blaze 
The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost. 

Fixes his steady gaze. 
And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast ; 
And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, 
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their foot- 
steps right. 

And, therefore, bards of old, 
Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood, 

Did in thy beams behold 
A beauteous type of that unchanging good, 
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray 
The voyager of time «^hould shape his heedful way. 



176 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER. 

Wild was the day ; the wintry sea 

Moaned sadly on New England's strand, 

When first, the thoughtful and the free, 
Our fathers, trod the desert land. 

They little thought how pure a light, 

With years, should gather round that day ; 

How love should keep their memories bright, 
How wide a realm their sons should sway. 

Green are their bays ; but greener still 

Shall round their spreading fame be wreathed, 

And regions, now untrod, shall thrill 

With reverence, when their names are breathed. 

Till where the sun, with softer fires. 

Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep, 
The children of the pilgrim sires 

This hallowed day like us shall keep. 



ODE FOR AN AGRICULTURAL CELEBRA- 
TION. 

Far back in the ages, 

The plough with wreaths was crowned : 
The hands of kings and sages 

Entwined the chaplet round ; 



A WALK AT SUNSET. 177 

Till men of spoil disdained the toil 

By which the world was nourished. 
And dews of blood enriched the soil 

Where green their laurels flourished : 
— Now the world her fault repairs — 

The guilt that stains her story ; 
And weeps her crimes amid the cares 

That formed her earliest glory. 

The proud throne shall crumble, 

The diadem shall wane, 
The tribes of earth shall humble 

The pride of those who reign ; 
And War shall lay his pomp away ; — 

The fame that heroes cherish, 
The glory earned in deadly fray, 

Shall fade, decay, and perish. 
Honor waits, o'er all, the Earth, 

Through endless generations, 
The art that calls her harvests forth, 
And feeds the expectant nations. 



A WALK AT SUNSET. 

When insect wings are glistening in the beam 
Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright, 

Oh, let me, by the crystal valley-stream. 
Wander amid the mild and mellow light ; 

And while the redbreast pipes his evening lay, 

Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting day. 



178 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Oh, sun ! that o'er the western mountains now 

Goest down in glory ! ever beautiful 
And blessed is thy radiance, whether thou 

Colorest the eastern heaven and night-mist cool, 
Till the bright day-star vanish, or on high 
Climbest, and streamest thy white splendors from 
midsky. 

Yet, loveliest are thy setting smiles, and fair, 
Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues 

That live among the clouds, and flush the air, 
Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews. 

Then softest gales are breathed, and softest heard 

The plaining voice of streams, and pensive note of 
bird. 

They who here roamed, of yore, the forest wide, 
Felt, by such charm, their simple bosoms won ; 

They deemed their quivered warrior, when he died, 
Went to bright isles beneath the setting sun ; 

Where winds are aye at peace, and skies are fair. 

And purple-skirted clouds curtain the crimson air. 

So, with the glories of the dying day, 

Its thousand trembling lights and changing hues. 
The memory of the brave who passed away 

Tenderly mingled ; — fitting hour to muse 
On such grave theme, and sweet the dream that shed 
Brightness and beauty round the destiny of the dead. 

For ages, on the silent forests here. 

Thy beams did fall before the red man came 



A WALK AT SUNSET. 179 

To dwell beneath them ; in their shade the deer 

Fed, and feared not the arrow's deadly aim. 
Nor tree was felled, in all that world of woods. 
Save by the beavers tooth, or winds, or rush of 
floods. 

Then came the hunter tribes, and thou didst look, 
For ages, on their deeds in the hard chase, 

And well-fought wars ; green sod and silver brook 
Took the first stain of blood ; before thy face 

The warrior generations came and passed. 

And glory was laid up for many an age to last. 

Now they are gone, gone as thy setting blaze 
Goes down the west, while night is pressing on, 

And, with them, the old tale of better days. 
And trophies of remembered power, are gone. 

Yon field that gives the harvest, where the plough 

Strikes the white bone, is all that tells their story 
now. 

I stand upon their ashes, in thy beam. 
The offspring of another race, I stand. 

Beside a stream they loved, this valley stream ; 
And where the night-fire of the quivered band 

Showed the gray oak by fits, and war-song rung, 

I teach the quiet shades the strains of this new 
tongue. 

Farewell ! but thou shalt come again — thy light 

Must shine on other changes, and behold 
The place of the thronged city still as night — 



I So BRYANT'S POEMS, 

States fallen — new empires built upon the 
old — 
But never shalt thou see these realms again 
Darkened by boundless groves, and roamed by sav- 
age men. 



HYMN OF THE WALDENESS. 

Hear, Father, hear thy faint afflicted flock 
Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock ; 
While those, who seek to slay thy children, hold 
Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold ; 
And the broad goodly lands, with pleasant airs 
That nurse the grape and wave the grain, are 
theirs. 

Yet better were this mountain wilderness, 
And this wild life of danger and distress — 
Watchings by night and perilous flight by day, 
And meetings in the depths of earth to pray ; 
Better, far better, than to kneel with them. 
And pay the impious rite thy laws condemn. 

Thou, Lord, dost hold the thunder ; the firm land 

Tosses in billows when it feels thy hand ; 

Thou dashest nation against nation, then 

Stillest the angry world to peace again. 

Oh, touch their stony hearts who hunt thy sons — 

The murderers of our wives and little ones. 



SONG OF THE STARS. l8i 

Yet, mighty God, yet shall thy frown look forth 
Unveiled, and terribly shall shake the earth. 
Then the foul power of priestly sin and all 
Its long-upheld idolatries shall fall. 
Thou shalt raise up the trampled and opprest, 
And thy delivered saints shall dwell in rest. 



SONG OF THE STARS. 

When the radiant morn of creation broke, 

And the world in the smile of God awoke, 

And the empty realms of darkness and death 

Were moved through their depths by his mighty 

breath, 
And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame 
From the void abyss by myriads came, — 
In the joy of youth as they darted away. 
Through the widening wastes of space to play. 
Their silver voices in chorus rung. 
And this was the song the bright ones sung : — 

" Away, away, through the wide, wide sky, — 
The fair blue fields that before us lie, — 
Each sun, with the worlds that round him roll, 
Each planet, poised on her turning pole ; 
With her isles of green and her clouds of white, 
And her waters that lie like fluid light. 

" For the source of glory uncovers his face. 
And the brightness overflows unbounded space ; 



1 82 BRYANT' S POEMS. 

And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides 
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides : 
Lo, yonder the living splendors play ; 
Away, on our joyous path, away! 

" Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar, 

In the infinite azure, star after star, • 

How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly 

pass ! 
How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass ! 
And the path of the gentle winds is seen, 
Where the small waves dance, and the young woods 

lean. 

" And see, where the brighter day-beams pour, 
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower ; 
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues, 
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their 

dews ; 
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground. 
With her shadowy cone the night goes round ! 

" Away, away ! in our blossoming bowers. 
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours. 
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn, 
See, Love is brooding, and Life is born, 
And breathing myriads are breaking from night, 
To rejoice like us, in motion and light. 

" GHde on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres. 
To weave the dance that measures the years ; 



HYMN OF THE CITY. 183 

Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent, 

To the farthest wall of the firmament, — 

The boundless visible smile of Him, 

To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim." 



HYMN OF THE CITY. 

Not in the solitude 
Alone, may man commune with Heaven, or see 

Only in savage wood 
And sunny vale, the present Deity ; 

Or only hear his voice 
Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice. 

Even here do I behold 
Thy steps, Almighty ! — here, amidst the crowd 

Through the great city rolled, 
With everlasting murmur, deep and loud — 

Choking the ways that wind 
'Mongst the proud piles, the work of human kind. 

Thy golden sunshine comes 
From the round heaven, and on their dwellings lies, 

And lights their inner homes — 
For them thou filPst with air the unbounded skies. 

And givest them the stores 
Of ocean, and the harvests of its shores. 

Thy spirit is around, 
Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along ; 
And this eternal sound — 



184 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng 

Like the resounding sea, 
Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of thee. 

And when the hours of rest 
Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine, 

Hushing its billowy breast — 
The quiet of that moment, too, is thine ; 

It breathes of Him who keeps 
The vast and helpless city while it sleeps. 



"iV6> MAN KNOWETH HIS SEPULCHRE. 

When he, who, from the scourge of wrong, 
Aroused the Hebrew tribes to fly, 

Saw the fair region, promised long, 
And bowed him on the hills to die ; 

God made his grave, to men unknown. 
Where Moab's rocks a vale infold, 

And laid the aged seer alone 

To slumber while the world grows old. 

Thus still, whene'er the good and just 
Close the dim eye on life and pain. 

Heaven watches o'er their sleeping dust. 
Till the pure spirit comes again. 

Though nameless, trampled, and forgot. 

His servant's humble ashes lie. 
Yet God has marked and sealed the spot, 

To call its inmate to the skv- 



''BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURNS 185 



BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN:' 

Oh, deem not they are blest alone 
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep ; 

The Power who pities man, has shown 
A blessing for the eyes that weep. 

The light of smiles shall fill again 
The lids that overflow with tears ; 

And weary hours of woe and pain 
Are promises of happier years. 

There is a day of sunny rest 

For every dark and troubled night ; 

And grief may bide, an evening guest, 
But joy shall come with early light. 

And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier 
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain, 

Hope that a brighter, happier sphere, 
Will give him to thy arms again. 

Nor let the good man's trust depart, 
Though life its common gifts deny, 

Though with a pierced and bleeding heart. 
And spurned of men, he goes to die. 

For God has marked each sorrowing day, 

And numbered every secret tear, 
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay 

For all his children suffer here. 



1 86 BRYANT'S POEMS, 



THE SKIES. 

Ay ! gloriously thou standest there, 
Beautiful, boundless firmament ! 

That swelling wide o'er earth and air, 
And round the horizon bent, 

With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall, 

Dost overhang and circle all. 

Far, far below thee, tall old trees 

Arise, and piles built up of old, 
And hills, whose ancient summits freeze, 
• In the fierce light and cold. 
The eagle soars his utmost height. 
Yet far thou stretchest o'er his flight. 

Thou hast thy frowns — with thee on high. 
The storm has made his airy seat. 

Beyond that soft blue curtain lie 
His stores of hail and sleet. 

Thence the consuming lightnings break, 

There the strong hurricanes awake. 

Yet art thou prodigal of smiles — 

Smiles sweeter than thy frowns are stern : 

Earth sends, from all her thousand isles, 
A shout at thy return. 

The glory that comes down from thee. 

Bathes, in deep joy, the land and sea. 

The sun, the gorgeous sun, is thine. 

The pomp that brings and shuts the day, 



THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. 187 

The clouds that round him change and shine, 

The airs that fan his way. 
Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there 
The meek moon walks the silent air. 

The sunny Italy may boast 

The beauteous tints that flush her skies, 
And lovely, round the Grecian coast, 

May thy blue pillars rise ; 
I only know hov/ fair they stand. 
Around my own beloved land. 

And they are fair — a charm is theirs, 

That earth, the proud green earth, has not — 

With all the forms, and hues, and airs, 
That haunt her sweetest spot. 

We gaze upon thy calm pure sphere, 

And read of Heaven's eternal year. 

Oh, when, amid the throng of men. 
The heart grows sick of hollow mirth, 

How willingly we turn us then 
Away from this cold earth, 

And look into thy azure breast, 

For seats of innocence and rest. 



THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. 

Beneath the waning moon I walk at night, 
And muse on human life — for all around 

Are dim uncertain shapes that cheat the sight, 
And pitfalls lurk in shade along the ground, 



1 88 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

And broken gleams of brightness, here and there, 
Glance through, and leave unwarned the deathlike 
air. 

The trampled earth returns a sound of fear — 
A hollow sound, as if I walked on tombs ; 

And lights, that tell of cheerful homes, appear, 
Far off, and die like hope amid the glooms, 

A mournful wind across the landscape flies, 

And the wide atmosphere is full of sighs. 

And I, with faltering footsteps, journey on. 
Watching the stars that roll the hours away, 

Till the faint light that guides me now is gone, 
And, like another life, the glorious day 

Shall open o'er me from the empyreal height. 

With warmth, and certainty, and boundless light. 



SONNET— TO 



Ay, thou art for the grave ; thy glances shine 

Too brightly to shine long ; another Spring 
Shall deck her for men's eyes, but not for thine — 

Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening 
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf. 

And the vexed ore no mineral of power ; 
And they who love thee wait in anxious grief 

Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour. 
Glide softly to thy rest then ; Death should come 

Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee, 



THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. 189 

As light winds wandering through groves of bloom 

Detach the delicate blossom from the tree. 
Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain ; 
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again. 



THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. 

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the 

year, 
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows 

brown and sear. 
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered 

leaves lie dead ; 
They rustle to the-eddying gust, and to the rabbit's 

tread. 
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the 

shrubs the jay, 
And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all 

the gloomy day. 

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that 
lately sprang and stood 

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sister- 
hood? 

Alas ! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of 
flowers 

Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good 
of ours. 



190 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold 

November ram, 
Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones 

again. 

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long 

ago, 
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the 

summer glow ; 
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the 

wood, 
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn 

beauty stood, 
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls 

the plague on men, 
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from 

upland, glade, and glen. 

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still 
such days will come. 

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter 
home ; 

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though 
all the trees are still. 

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, 

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fra- 
grance late he bore, 

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the 
stream no more. 

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty 
died. 



HYMN TO DEATH. 191 

The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by 

my side : 
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest 

cast the leaf. 
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so 

brief: 
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young 

friend of ours, 
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the 

flowers. 



HYMN TO DEATH. 

Oh ! could I hope the wise and pure in heart 

Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem 

My voice unworthy of the theme it tries, — 

I would take up the hymn to Death, and say 

To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee 

And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow 

They place an iron crown, and call thee king 

Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world. 

Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair. 

The loved, the good — that breath'st upon the lights 

Of virtue set along the vale of life, 

And they go out in darkness. I am come, 

Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers. 

Such as have stormed thy stern insensible ear 

From the beginning. I am come to speak 

Thy praises. True it is, that I have wept 

Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again ; 



192 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

And thou from some I love wilt take a life 

Dear to me as my own. Yet while the spell 

Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee 

In sight of all thy trophies, face to face, 

Meet is it that my voice should utter forth 

Thy nobler triumphs : I will teach the world 

To thank thee. — Who are thine accusers? — Who? 

The living ! — they who never felt thy power, 

And know thee not. The curses of the wretch 

Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand 

Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come, 

Are writ among thy praises. But the good — 

Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace. 

Upbraid the gentle violence that took off 

His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell? 

Raise then the Hymn to Death. Deliverer ! 
God hath anointed thee to free the opprest 
And crush the oppressor. When the arm^d chief, 
The conqueror of nations, walks the world, 
And it is changed beneath his feet, and all 
Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm — 
Thou, while his head is loftiest, and his heart 
Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand 
Almighty, sett'st upon him thy stern grasp. 
And the strong links of that tremendous chain 
That bound mankind are crumbled ; thou dost break 
Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust. 
Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes 
Gather within their ancient bounds again. 
Else had the mighty of the olden time, 
Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned 
His birth from Libyan Ammon, smote even now 



HYMN TO DEATH. 193 

The nations with a rod of iron, and driven 

Their chariots o'er our necks. Thou dost avenge, 

In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know 

No other friend. Nor dost thou interpose 

Only to lay the sufferer asleep, 

Where he who made him wretched troubles not 

His rest — thou dost strike down his tyrant too. 

Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge 

Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold. 

Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible 

And old idolatries ; — from the proud fanes 

Each to his grave their priests go out, till none 

Is left to teach their worship ; then the fires 

Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss 

O'ercreeps their altars ; the fallen images 

Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns, 

Chanted by kneeling crowds, the chiding winds 

Shriek in the solitary aisles. When he 

Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all 

The laws that God or man has made, and round 

Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth, — 

Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven, 

And celebrates his shame in open day. 

Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off 

The horrible example. Touched by thine. 

The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold 

Wrung from the o"'er-worn poor. The perjurer 

Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble 

Against his neighbor's life, and he who laughed 

And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame 

Blasted before his own foul calumnies. 

Are smit with deadly silence. He, who sold 



194 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

His conscience to preserve a worthless life, 

Even while he hugs himself on his escape, 

Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length, 

Thy steps overtake him, and there is no time 

For parley — nor will bribes unclench thy grasp. 

Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long 

Ere his last hour. And when the reveller. 

Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on, 

And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life 

Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal, 

And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye. 

And check'st him in mid course. Thy skeleton hand 

Shows to the faint of spirit the right path. 

And he is warned, and fears to step aside. 

Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime 

Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand 

Drops the drawn knife. But, oh, most fearfully 

Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy 

shafts 
Drink up the ebbing spirit — then the hard 
Of heart and violent of hand restores 
The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged. 
Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck 
The guilty secret ; lips, for ages sealed. 
Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length, 
And give it up ; the felon's latest breath 
Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime ; 
The slanderer, horror-smitten, and in tears. 
Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged 
To work his brother's ruin. Thou dost make 
Thy penitent victim utter to the air 
The dark conspiracy that strikes at life, 



HYMN TO DEATH. 195 

And aims to whelm the laws ; ere yet the hour 
Is come, and the dread sign of murder given. 

Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found 
On virtue's side ; the wicked, but for thee, 
Had been too strong for the good ; the great of earth 
Had crushed the weak forever. Schooled in guile 
For ages, while each passing year had brought 
Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world 
With their abominations ; while its tribes, 
Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled, 
Had knelt to them in worship ; sacrifice 
Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs 
Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn : 
But thou, the great reformer of the world, 
Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud 
In their green pupilage, their lore half learned — 
Ere guilt has quite overrun the simple heart 
God gave them at their birth, and blotted out 
His image. Thou dost mark them, flushed with hope, 
As on the threshold of their vast designs 
Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them down. 



Alas, 1 little thought that the stern power 
Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus 
Before the strain was ended. It must cease — 
For he is in his grave who taught my youth 
The art of verse, and in the bud of life 
Offered me to the muses. Oh, cut off 
Untimely ! when thy reason in its strength, 
Ripened by years of toil and studious search 



196 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught 

Thy hand to practise best the lenient art 

To which thou gavest thy laborious days, 

And, Jast, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth 

Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes 

And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill 

Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale 

When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which 

thou 
Shalt not, as wont, overlook, is all I have 
To oiTer at thy grave — this — and the hope 
To copy thy example, and to leave 
A name of which the wretched shall not think 
As of an enemy's whom they forgive 
As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou 
Whose early guidance trained my infant steps — 
Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep 
Of death is over, and a happier life 
Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust. 

Now thou art not — and yet the men whose guilt 
Has wearied Heaven for vengeance — he who bears 
False witness — he who takes the orphan's bread, 
And robs the widow — he who spreads abroad 
Polluted hands in mockery of prayer. 
Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look 
On what is written, yet I blot not out 
The desultory numbers — let them stand, 
The record of an idle re very. 



EARTH'S CHILDREN, 19: 

'' earth's children cleave to 
earth:' 

Earth's children cleave to earth — her frail 

Decaying children dread decay. 
Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale, 

And lessens in the morning ray : 
Look, how, by mountain rivulet, 

It lingers, as it upward creeps, 
And clings to fern and copsewood set 

Along the green and dewy steeps : 
Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings 

To precipices fringed with grass. 
Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings, 

And bowers of fragrant sassafras. 
Yet all in vain — it passes still 

From hold to hold, it cannot stay. 
And in the very beams that fill 

The world with glory, wastes away. 
Till, parting from the mountain's brow. 

It vanishes from human eye. 
And that which sprung of earth is now 

A portion of the glorious sky. 



TO A waterfowl. 

Whither, 'midst falling dew. 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day. 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 



19S BRYANT'S POEMS, 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean side? 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, 
The desert and illimitable air — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near, 

And soon that toil shall end ; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest. 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 

ThouVt gone, the abyss of heaven 
Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given. 

And shall not soon depart. 

He who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight. 
In the long way that I must tread alone 

Will lead my steps aright. 



THE BATTLE FIELD, \% 



THE BATTLE FIELD. 

Once this soft turf, this rivulef s sands, 
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd, 

And fiery hearts and arm^d hands 
Encountered in the battle cloud. 

Ah ! never shall the land forget 

How gushed the life-blood of her brave — 
Gushed, warm with hope and valor yet, 

Upon the soil they fought to save. 

Now all is calm and fresh and still ; 

Alone the chirp of flitting bird. 
And talk of children on the hill. 

And bell of wandering kine, are heard. 

No solemn host goes trailing by 

The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain ; 
Men start not at the battle cry ; 

Oh, be it never heard again ! 

Soon rested those who fought — but thou. 

Who minglest in the harder strife 
For truths which men receive not now, 

Thy warfare only ends with life. 

A friendless warfare ! lingering long 
Through weary day and weary vear ; 

A wild and many-weaponed throng 
Hang on thy front and flank and rear. 



200 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, 
And blench not at thy chosen lot ; 

The timid good may stand aloof, 

The sage may frown — yet faint thou not ! 

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast. 
The hissing, stinging bolt of scorn ; 

For with thy side shall dwell, at last. 
The victory of endurance born. 

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again ; 

The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, 

And dies among his worshippers. 

Yea, though thou lie upon the dust. 

When those who helped thee flee in fear. 
Die full of hope and manly trust. 

Like those who fell in battle here. 

Another hand thy sword shall wield. 
Another hand the standard wave, 

Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed 
The blast of triumph o'er thy grave ! 



THE CHILD'S FUNERAL. 

Fair is thy site, Sorrento ! green thy shore ! 

Black crags behind thee pierce the clear blue skies, 
The sea, whose borders ruled the world of yore. 

As clear, and bluer still, before thee lies. 



THE CHILD'S FUNERAL. 201 

Vesuvius smokes in sight, whose fount of fire. 
Out-gushing, drowned the cities on his steeps ; 

And murmuring Naples, spire o'ertopping spire, 
Sits on the slope beyond, where Virgil sleeps. 

Here doth the earth with flowers of every hue 

Heap her green breast, when April's sun is 
bright — 

Flowers of the morning-red, or ocean-blue, 
Or Hke the mountain frost of silvery white. 

Currents of fragrance from the orange tree. 
And sward of violets, breathing to and fro, 

Mingle, and wandering out upon the sea. 
Refresh the idle boatman where they blow. 

Yet even here, as under harsher climes. 

Tears o'er the loved and early lost are shed. 

That soft air saddens with the funeral chimes. 
Those shining flowers are gathered for the dead. 

Here once a child, a playful, smiling one. 
All the day long caressing and caressed. 

Died, when his little tongue had just begun 
To lisp the names of those he loved the best. 

The father strove his struggling grief to quell ; 

The mother wept, as mothers used to weep ; 
Two little sisters wearied them to tell 

When their dear Carlo would awake from sleep. 

Within an inner room his couch they spread. 

His funeral couch ; with mingled grief and love, . 

They laid a crown of roses on his head, 

And murmured, " Brighter is his crown above." 



202 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

They scattered round him, on his snowy sheet, 
Laburnum's strings of sunny-colored gems, 

Sad hyacinth and violet dim and sweet, 

And orange blossoms on their dark green stems. 

And now the hour is come, — the priest is there, — 
Torches are lit, — the bells are tolled, — they go, 

With solemn rites of blessing and of prayer, 
To lay those dear remains in earth below. 

The door is opened — hark that quick glad cry — 
" Carlo has waked — has waked, and is at play ! " 

The little sisters leap and laugh, and try 
To climb the couch on which the infant lay. 

And there he sits, alive, and gayly shakes 

In his full hands, the blossoms blue and white, 

And smiles with twinkling ej^es, like one who wakes 
From a deep slumber at the morning light. 



THE FOUNTAIN. 

Fountain, that springest on this grassy slope, 
Thy quick cool murmur mingles pleasantly, 
With the cool sound of breezes in the beech. 
Above me in the noontide. Thou dost wear 
No stain of thy dark birthplace ; gushing up 
From the red mould and slimy roots of earth. 
Thou flashest in the sun. The mountain air. 
In winter, is not clearer, nor the dew 
That shines on mountain blossom. Thus doth God 
Bring, from the dark and foul, the pure and bright. 



THE fountain: 203 

This tangled thicket on the bank above 
Thy basin, how thy waters keep it green ! 
For thou dost feed the roots of the wild vine 
That trails all over it, and to the twigs 
Ties fast her clusters. There the spice-bush lifts 
Her leafy lances ; the viburnum there, 
Paler of foliage, to the sun holds up 
Her circlet of green berries. In and out 
The chipping sparrow, in her coat of brown, 
Steals silently, lest I should mark her nest. 

Not such thou wert of yore, ere yet the axe 
Had smitten the old woods. Then hoary trunks 
Of oak, and plane, and hickory, o'er thee held 
A mighty canopy. When April winds 
Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush 
Of scarlet flowers. The tulip-tree, high up, 
Opened, in airs of June, her multitude 
Of golden chalices to humming birds 
And silken-winged insects of the sky. 

Frail wood-plants clustered round thy edge in 
Spring. 
The liverleaf put forth her sister blooms 
Of faintest blue. Here the quick-footed wolf. 
Passing to lap thy waters, crushed the flower 
Of Sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem 
The red drops fell like blood. The deer, too, left 
Her delicate foot-print in the soft moist mould, 
And on the fallen leaves. The slow-paced bear. 
In such a sultry summer noon as this, 
Stopped at thy stream, and drank, and leaped 
across. 

But thou hast histories that stir the heart 



204 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

With deeper feeling ; while I look on thee 

They rise before me. I behold the scene 

Hoary again with forests ; I behold 

The Indian warrior, whom a hand unseen 

Has smitten with his death-wound in the woods, 

Creep slowly to thy well-known rivulet, 

And slake his death-thirst. Hark, that quick fierce 

cry 
That rends the utter silence ; 'tis the whoop 
Of battle, and a throng of savage men 
With naked arms and faces stained like blood, 
Fill the green wilderness ; the long bare arms 
Are heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows stream ; 
Each makes a tree his shield, and every tree 
Sends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight and short, 
As is the whirlwind. Soon the conquerors 
And conquered vanish, and the dead remain 
Gashed horribly with tomahawks. The woods 
Are still again, the frightened bird comes back 
And plumes her wings ; but thy sweet waters run 
Crimson with blood. Then, as the sun goes down, 
Amid the deepening twilight I descry 
Figures of men that crouch and creep unheard. 
And bear away the dead. The next day's shower 
Shall wash the tokens of the fight away. 

I look again — a hunter's lodge is built. 
With poles and boughs, beside thy crystal well. 
While the meek autumn stains the woods with 

gold. 
And sheds his golden sunshine. To the door 
The red man slowly drags the enormous bear 
Slain in the chestnut thicket, or flings down 



THE FOUNTAIN. 205 

The deer from his strong shoulders. Shaggy fells 
Of wolf and cougar hang upon the walls, 
And loud the black-eyed Indian maidens laugh, 
That gather, from the rustling heaps of leaves, 
'The hickory's white nuts, and the dark fruit 
That falls from the gray butternut's long boughs. 

So centuries passed by, and still the woods 
Blossomed in spring, and reddened when the year 
Graw chill, and glisteaed in the frozen rains 
Of winter, till the white man swung the axe 
Beside thee — signal of a mighty change. 
Then all around was heard the crash of trees. 
Trembling awhile and rushing to the ground, 
The low of ox, and shouts of men who fired 
The brushwood, or who tore the earth with ploughs. 
The grain sprang thick and tall, and hid in green 
The blackened hillside ; ranks of spiky maize 
Rose like a host embattled ; the buckwheat 
Whitened broad acres, sweetening with its flowers 
The August wind. White cottages were seen 
With rose-trees at the windows ; barns from which 
Swelled loud and shrill the cry of chanticleer ; 
Pastures where rolled and neighed the lordly horse, 
And white flocks browsed and bleated. A rich turf 
Of grasses brought from far o'ercrept thy bank, 
Spotted with the white clover. Blue-eyed girls 
Brought pails, and dipped them in thy crystal pool ; 
And children, ruddy-cheeked and flaxen-haired. 
Gathered the glistening cowslip from thy edge. 
Since then, what steps have trod thy border ! 

Here ! 

On thy green bank, the woodman of the swamp 



2o6 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Has laid his axe, the reaper of the hill 

His sickle, as they stooped to taste thy stream. 

The sportsman, tired with wandering in the still 

September noon, has bathed his heated brow 

In thy cold current. Shouting boys, let loose 

•For a wild holiday, have quaintly shaped 

Into a cup the folded linden leaf. 

And dipped thy sliding crystal. From the wars 

Returning, the plumed soldier by thy side 

Has sat, and mused how pleasant 't were to dwell 

In such a spot, and be as free as thou, 

And move for no man^s bidding more. At eve. 

When thou wert crimson with the crimson sky, 

Lovers have gazed upon thee, and have thought 

Their mingled lives should flow as peacefully 

And brightly as thy waters. Here the sage, 

Gazing into thy self-replenished depth, 

Has seen eternal order circumscribe 

And bind the motions of eternal change, 

And from the gushing of thy simple fount 

Has reasoned to the mighty universe. 

Is there no other change for thee, that lurks 
Among the future ages t Will not man 
Seek out strange arts to wither and deform 
The pleasant landscape which thou makest green ? 
Or shall the veins that feed thy constant stream 
Be choked in middle earth, and flow no more 
Forever, that the water-plants along 
Thy channel perish, and the bird in vain 
Alight to drink? Haply shall these green hills 
Sink, with the lapse of years, into the gulf 
Of ocean waters, and thy source be lost 



THE WINDS. 207 

Amidst the bitter brine? Or shall they rise 
Upheaved in broken cliffs and airy peaks, 
Haunts of the eagle and the snake, and thou 
Gush midway from the bare and barren steep? 



THE WINDS. 



I. 

Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air, 
Softly ye played a few brief hours ago ; 

Ye bore the murmuring bee ; ye tossed the hair 
O^er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow ; 

Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of 
blue ; 

Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew ; 

Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew, 

Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow. 

II. 

How are ye changed ! Ye take the cataract's sound ; 

Ye take the whirlpool's fury and its might ; 
The mountain shudders as ye sweep the ground ; 

The valley woods lie prone beneath your flight. 
The clouds before you shoot like eagles past ; 
The homes of men are rocking in your blast ; 
Ye lift the roofs like autumn leaves, and cast, 

Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sight. 

III. 
The weary fowls of heaven make wing in vai 1, 

To 'scape your wrath ; ye seize and dash them 
dead. 



2o8 BRYAN7^'S POEMS. 

Against the earth ye drive the roaring rain ; 

The harvest field becomes a river's bed ; 
And torrents tumble from the hills around, 
Plains turn to lakes, and villages are drowned, 
And wailing voices, 'midst the tempest's sound. 

Rise, as the rushing waters swell and spread. 

IV. 

Ye dart upon the deep, and straight is heard 
A wilder roar, and men grow pale, and pray; 

Ye fling its floods around you, as a bird 

Flings o'er his shivering plumes the fountain's 
spray. 

See ! to the breaking mast the sailor clings ; 

Ye scoop the ocean to its briny springs. 

And take the mountain billow on your wings, 
And pile the wreck of navies round the bay. 

V. 

Why rage ye thus? — no strife for liberty 

Has made you mad ; no tyrant, strong through 
fear, 

Has chained your pinions till ye wrenched them free, 
And rushed into the unmeasured atmosphere : 

For ye were born in freedom where ye blow ; 

Free o'er the mighty deep to come and go : 

Earth's solemn woods were yours, her wastes of 
snow, 
Her isles where summer blossoms all the year. 

VI. 

O ye wild winds, a mightier Power than yours 
In chains upon the shore of Europe lies ; 



THE WINDS. 209 

The sceptered throng, whose fetters he endures, 

Watch his mute throes with terror in their eyes : 
And arm^d warriors all around him stand, 
And, as he struggles, tighten every band. 
And lift the heavy spear, with threatening hand, 
To pierce the victim, should he strive to rise. 

VII. 

Yet oh, when that wronged Spirit of our race 

Shall break, as soon he must, his long-worn 
chains, 
And leap in freedom from his prison-place, 

Lord of his ancient hills and fruitful plains. 
Let him not rise, like these mad winds of air. 
To waste the loveliness that time could spare, 
To fill the earth with woe, and blot her fair 

Unconscious breast with blood from human veins. 

VIII. 

But may he like the Spring-time come abroad, 

Who crumbles winter's gyves with gentle might, 
When in the genial breeze, the breath of God, 

Come spouting up the unsealed springs to light ; 
Flowers start from their dark prisons at his feet, 
The woods, long dumb, awake to hymnings sweet. 
And morn and eve, whose glimmerings almost meet, 
Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient night. 



2IO BRYANT'S POEMS. 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 



Here we halt our march, and pitch our tent, 

On the rugged forest ground, 
And Hght our fire with the branches rent 

By winds fi"om the beeches round. 
Wild storms have torn this ancient wood, 

But a wilder is at hand. 
With hail of iron and rain of blood, 

To sweep and scath the land. 

II. 

How the dark waste rings with voices shrill, 

That startle the sleeping bird, 
To-morrow eve must the voice be still. 

And the step must fall unheard. 
The Briton lies by the blue Champlain, 

In Ticonderoga's towers, 
And ere the sun rise twice again, 

The towers and the lake are ours. 

III. 
Fill up the bowl from the brook that glides, 

Where the fireflies light the brake ; 
A ruddier juice the Briton hides, 

In his fortress by the lake. 
Build high the fire, till the panther leap 

From his lofty perch in fright. 
And we 11 strengthen our weary arms with sleep, 

For the deeds of to-morrow night. 



THE DEATH OF SCHILLER. 2il 



THE DEATH OF SCHILLER. 

'T IS said, when Schiller^s death drew nigh, 
The wish possessed his mighty mind, 

To wander fortli wherever lie 

The homes and haunts of human kind. 

Then strayed the poet, in his dreams. 
By Rome and Egypt\s ancient graves ; 

Went up the New World's forest streams, 
Stood in the Hindoo's temple-caves. 

Walked with the Pawnee, fierce and stark, 
The bearded Tartar, 'midst his herds, 

The peering Chinese, and the dark 
False Malay uttering gentle words. 

How could he rest ? even then he trod 
The threshold of the world unknown ; 

Already, from the seat of God, 

A ray upon his garments shone ; — 

Shone and awoke that strong desire 

For love and knowledge reached not here, 

Till death set free his soul of lire. 
To plunge into its fitting sphere. 

Then — who shall tell how deep, how bright. 
The abyss of glory opened round? 

How thought and feeling flowed like light. 
Through ranks of being without bound ? 



»I2 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



LIFE. 

Oh life ! I breathe thee in the breeze, 

I feel thee bounding in my veins, 
I see thee in these stretching trees, 

These flowers, this still rock's mossy stains. 

This stream of odors flowing by 

From clover-field and clumps of pine, 

This music, thrilling all the sky, 

From all the morning birds, are thine. 

Thou filPst with joy this little one, 
That leaps and shouts beside me here. 

Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run 

Through the dark woods like frightened deer. 

Ah ! must thy mighty breath, that wakes 
Insect and bird, and flower and tree, 

From the low trodden dust, and makes 
Their daily gladness, pass from me — 

Pass, pulse by pulse, till o'er the ground 

These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain, 

And this fair world of sight and sound 
Seem fading into night again ? 

The things, oh life ! thou quickenest, all 
Strive upward toward the broad bright sky, 

Upward and outward, and they fall 
Back to earth's bosom when they die. 



LIFE, 21, 

All that have borne the touch of death, 
All that shall live, lie mingled there. 

Beneath that veil of bloom and breath. 
That living zone 'twixt earth and air. 

There lies my chamber dark and still, 
The atoms trampled by my feet, 

There wait, to take the- place I fill 
In the sweet air and sunshine sweet. 



Well, I have had my turn, have been 
Raised from the darkness of the clod. 

And for a glorious moment seen 

The brightness of the skirts of God ; 

And knew the light within my breast. 
Though wavering oftentimes and dim, 

The power, the will, that never rest, 
And cannot die, were all from him. 

Dear child ! I know that thou wilt grieve, 
To see me taken from thy love, 

Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve, 
And weep and scatter flowers above. 



Thy little heart will soon be healed. 
And being shall be bliss, till thou 

To younger forms of life must yield. 
The place thou filPst with beauty now. 



214 BR YANT 'S POEMS. 

When we descend to dust again, 
Where will the final dwelling be, 

Of Thought and all its memories then, 
My love for thee, and thine for me? 



A PRESENTIMENT. 

" Oh father, let us hence — for hark, 
A fearful murmur shakes the air ; 

The clouds are coming swift and dark ; — 
"What horrid shapes they wear ! 

A winged giant sails the sky ; 

Oh father, father, let us fly ! " 

" Hush, child ; it is a grateful sound. 

That beating of the summer shower — 
Here, where the boughs hang close around. 

We '11 pass a pleasant hour. 
Till the fresh wind, that brings the rain. 
Has swept the broad heaven clear again." 

*' Nay, father, let us haste — for see. 

That horrid thing with horned brow — 
His wings o'erhang this very tree, 

He scowls upon us now ; 
His huge black arm is lifted high ; 
Oh father, father, let us fly ! " 

" Hush, child ; " but, as the father spoke, 
Downvv^ard the livid firebolt came, 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 215 

Close to his ear the thunder broke, 

And, blasted by the flame, 
The child lay dead ; while, dark and still, 
Swept the grim cloud along the hill. 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps 

The disembodied spirits of the dead. 
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps 

And perishes among the dust we tread? 

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain 
If there I meet thy gentle presence not ; 

Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again 
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. 

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there ? 

That heart whose fondest throbs to me were 
given ? 
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer, 

Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven ? 

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, 
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, 

And larger movements of the unfettered mind, 
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here ? 

The love that lived through a'u the stormy past. 
And meekly with my harsher nature bore, 

And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last. 
Shall it expire with life, and be no more ? 



2i6 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

A happier lot than mine, and larger light, 

Await thee there ; for thou hast bowed thy will 

In cheerful homage to the rule of right, 
And lovest all, and renderest good for ill. 

For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell. 

Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroU ; 

And wrath hath left its scar — that fire of hell 
Has left its frightful scar upon my soul. 

Yet, though thou wear'st the glory of the sky. 
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name. 

The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye. 
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same ? 

Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, 
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this — 

The wisdom which is love — till I become 
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss ? 



THE OLD MAN'S COUNSEL. 

Among our hills and valleys, I have known 
Wise and grave men, who, while their diligent hands 
Tendered or gathered in the fruits of earth, 
Were reverent learners in the solemn school 
Of nature. Not in vain to them were sent 
Seed-time and harvest, or the vernal shower 
That darkened the brown tilth, or snow that beat 
On the white winter hills. Each brought, in turn, 



THE OLD MAN'S COUNSEL. 217 

Some truth, some lesson on the life of man. 
Or recognition of the Eternal mind 
Who veils his glory with the elements. 

One such I knew long since, a white-haired man, 
Pithy of speech, and merry when he would ; 
A genial optimist, who daily drew 
From what he saw his quaint moralities. 
Kindly he held communion, though so old, 
With me a dreaming boy, and taught me much 
That books tell not, and I shall ne'er forget." 

The sun of May was bright in middle heaven, 
And steeped the sprouting forests, the green hills 
And emerald wheat-fields, in his yellow light. 
Upon the apple-tree, where rosy buds 
Stood clustered, ready to burst forth in bloom, 
The robin warbled forth his full clear note 
For hours, and wearied not. Within the woods. 
Whose young and half-transparent leaves scarce cast 
A shade, gay circles of anemones 
Danced on their stalks ; the shadbush, white with 

flowers. 
Brightened the glens ; the new-leaved butternut 
And quivering poplar to the roving breeze 
Gave a balsamic fragrance. In the fields 
I saw the pulses of the gentle wind 
On the young grass. My heart was touched with joy 
At so much beauty, flushing every hour 
Into a fuller beauty ; but my friend. 
The thoughtful ancient, standing at my side, 
Gazed on it mildly sad. I asked him why. 



2i8 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

" Well may'st thou join in gladness," he replied, ■ 
**With the glad earth, her springing plants and 

flowers, 
And this soft wind, the herald of the green 
Luxuriant summer. Thou art young like them, 
And well may'st thou rejoice. But while the flight 
Of seasons fills and knits thy spreading frame. 
It withers mine, and thins my hair, and dims 
These eyes, whose fading light shall soon be 

quenched 
In utter darkness. Hearest thou that bird ?" 

I listened, and from 'midst the depth of woods 
Heard the love-signal of the grouse, that wears 
A sable rufl" around his mottled neck ; 
Partridge they call him by our northern streams. 
And pheasant by the Delaware. He beat 
'Gainst his barred sides his speckled wings, and made 
A sound like distant thunder ; slow the strokes 
At first, then fast and faster, till at length 
They passed into a murmur and were still. 

" There hast thou," said my friend, a " fitting type 
Of human life. 'T is an old truth, I know, 
But images like these revive the power 
Of long familiar truths. Slow pass our days 
In childhood, and the hours of liglil are long 
Betwixt the morn and eve ; with swifter lapse 
They glide in manhood, and in age they fly ; 
Till days and seasons flit before the mind 
As flit the snow-flakes in a winter storm, 
Seen rather than distinguished. Ah ! I seem 



THE OLD MAN'S COUNSEL, 219 

As if I sat within a helpless bark, 

By swiftly running waters hurried on 

To shoot some mighty clitf. Along the banks 

Grove after grove, rock after frowning rock. 

Bare sands and pleasant homes, and flowery nooks, 

And isles and whirlpools in the stream, appear 

Each after each, but the devoted skiff 

Darts by so swiftly that their images 

Dwell not upon the mind, or only dwell 

In dim confusion ; faster yet 1 sweep 

By other banks and the great gulf is near, 

" Wisely, my son, while yet thy days are long. 
And this fair change of seasons passes slow, 
Gather and treasure up the good they yield — 
All that they teach of virtue, of pure thoughts 
And kind affections, reverence for thy God 
And for thy brethren ; so when thou shalt come 
Into these barren years, thou may'st not bring 
A mind unfurnished and a withered heart." 

Long since that white-haired ancient slept — but 
still. 
When the red flower-buds crowd the orchard bough. 
And the ruffed grouse is drumming far within 
The woods, his venerable form again 
Is at my side, his voice is in my ear. 



220 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

A SERENADE. 

FROM THE SPANISH. 

If slumber, sweet Lisena ! 

Have stolen o^er thine eyes, 
As night steals o'er the glory 

Of spring's transparent skies ; 

Wake, in thy scorn and beauty, 
And listen to the strain 

That murmurs my devotion. 
That mourns for thy disdain. 

Here by the door at midnight, 
I pass the dreary hour, 

With plaintive sounds profaning 
The silence of thy bower ; 

A tale of sorrow cherished 

Too fondly to depart, 
Of wrong from love the flatterer, 

And from my own wild heart. 

Twice, o'er this vale, the seasons 
Have brought and borne away 

The January tempest. 
The genial wind of May ; 

Yet still my plaint is uttered. 
My tears and sighs are given 

To earth's unconscious waters. 
And wandering winds of heaven. 



^^ 







A Serenade. 



A SERENADE. 221 

I saw from this fair region, 

The smile of summer pass. 
And myriad frost- stars glitter 

Among the russet grass ; 

While winter seized the streamlets 

That fled along the ground, 
And fast in chains of crystal 

The truant murmurers bound. 

I saw that to the forest 

The nightingales had flown, 
And every sweet-voiced fountain 

Had hushed its silver tone. 

The maniac winds, divorcing 

The turtle from his mate, 
Raved through the leafy beeches, 

And left them desolate. 

Now May, with life and music, 

The blooming valley fills. 
And rears her flowery arches 

For all the little rills. 

The minstrel bird of evening 

Comes back on joyous wings. 
And, like the harp's soft murmur, 

Is heard the gush of springs. 

And deep within the forest 

Are wedded turtles seen, 
Their nuptial chambers seeking — 

Their chambers close and green. 



222 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

The rugged trees are mingling 
Their flowery sprays in love ; 

The ivy climbs the laurel, 
To clasp the boughs above. 

They change — but thou, Lisena, 
Art cold while I complain : 

Why to thy lover only 

Should spring return in vain ? 



TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM 
LEGGETT. 

The earth may ring, from shore to shore, 
With echoes of a glorious name, 

But he, whose loss our tears deplore, 
Has left behind him more than fame. 

For when the death frost came to lie 
On Leggett's warm and mighty heart. 

And quenched his bold and friendly eye. 
His spirit did not all depart. 

The words of fire that from his pen 
Were flung upon the lucid page, 

Still move, still shake the hearts of men. 
Amid a cold and coward age. 

His love of truth, too warm, too strong 
For Hope or Fear to chain or chill, 

His hate of tyranny and wrong, 
Burn in the breasts he kindled still. 



AN EVENING RE VERY. 223 

AN EVENING REVERY. 

FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. 

The summer day is dosed — the sun is set : 
Well they have done their office, those bright hours, 
The latest of whose train goes softly out 
In the red West. The green blade of the ground 
Has risen, and herds have cropped it ; the young twig 
Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun ; 
Flowers of the garden and the Avaste have blown 
And withered ; seeds have fallen upon the soil, 
From bursting cells, and in their graves await 
Their resurrection. Insects from the pools 
Have filled the air awhile with humming wings, 
That now are still forever ; painted moths 
Have wandered the blue sky, and died again ; 
The mother-bird hath broken, for her brood. 
Their prison shell, or shoved them from the nest, 
Plumed for their earliest flight. In bright alcoves, 
In woodland cottages with barky walls. 
In noisome cells of the tumultuous town, 
Mothers have clasped with joy the new-born babe. 
Graves by the lonely forest, by the shore 
Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways 
Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out 
And filled, and closed. This day hath parted friends 
That ne'er before were parted ; it hath knit 
New friendships ; it hath seen the maiden plight 
Her faith, and trust her peace to him who long 
Had wooed ; and it hath heard, from lips which late 



224 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Were eloquent of love, the first harsh word, 
That told the wedded one her peace was flown. 
Farewell to the sweet sunshine ! One glad day 
Is added now to Childhood's merry days, 
And one calm day to those of quiet Age. 
Still the fleet hours run on ; and as I lean, 
Amid the thickening darkness, lamps are lit, 
By those who watch the dead, and those who twine 
Flowers for the bride. The mother from the eyes 
Of her sick infant shades the painful light, 
And sadly listens to his quick-drawn breath. 
Oh thou great Movement of the Universe, 
Or Change, or Flight of Time — for ye are one ! 
That bearest, silently, this visible scene 
Into night's shadow and the streaming rays 
Of starlight, whither art thou bearing me ? 
I feel the mighty current sweep me on. 
Yet know not whither. Man foretells afar 
The courses of the stars ; the very hour 
He knows when they shall darken or grow bright ; 
Yet doth the eclipse of Sorrow and of Death 
Come unforewarned. Who next, of those I love, 
Shall pass from life, or, sadder yet, shall fall 
From virtue? Strife with foes, or bitterer strife 
With friends, or shame and general scorn of men — 
Which who can bear? — or the fierce rack of pain, 
Lie they within my path ? Or shall the years 
Push mc, with soft and inoffensive pace. 
Into the stilly twilight of my age? 
Or do the portals of another life 
Even now, while I am glorying in my strength. 
Impend around me? Oh ! beyond that bourne, 



THE PAINTED CUP. 225 

In the vast cycle of being which begins 

At that dread threshold, with what fairer forms 

Shall the great law of change and progress clothe 

Its workings ? Gently — so have good men taught — 

Gently, and without grief, the old shall glide 

Into the new ; the eternal flow of things, 

Like a bright river of the fields of heaven, 

Shall journey onward in perpetual peace. 



THE PAINTED CUP. 

The fresh savannas of the Sangamon 
Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass 
Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts 
Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire ; 
The wanderers of the prairie know them well, 
And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup. 

Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not 
That these bright chalices were tinted thus 
To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet 
On moonlight evenings in the hazel bowers, 
And dance till they are thirsty. Call not up, 
Amid this fresh and virgin solitude, 
The faded fancies of an elder world ; 
But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths 
Of June, and glistening flies, and humming-birds. 
To drink from, when on all these boundless lawns 
The morning sun looks hot. Or let the wind 
©""erturn in sport their ruddy brims, and pour 



226 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

A sudden shower upon the strawberry plant, 
To swell the reddening fruit that even now 
Breathes a slight fragrance from the sunny slope. 

But thou art of a gayer fancy. Well — 
Let then the gentle Manitou of flowers, 
Lingering amid the bloomy waste he loves, 
Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone — 
Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown 
And ruddy with the sunshine ; let him come 
On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake, 
And part with little hands the spiky grass ; 
And touching, with his cherry lips, the edge 
Of those bright beakers, drain the gathered dew. 



A DREAM. 



" I HAD a dream — a strange, wild dream — " 

Said a dear voice at early light ; 
" And even yet its shadows seem 

To linger in my waking sight. 

** Earth, green with spring, and fresh with dew, 
And bright with morn, before me stood ; 

And airs just wakened softly blew 
On the young blossoms of the wood. 

" Birds sang within the sprouting shade. 
Bees hummed amid the whispering grass, 

And children prattled as they played 
Beside the rivulet's dimpling glass. 



A DREAM. 227 

" Fast climbed the sun — the flowers were flown, 
There played no children in the glen ; 

For some were gone, and some were grown 
To blooming dames and bearded men. 

•' 'Twas noon, 'twas summer — I beheld 
Woods darkening in the flush of day, 

And that bright rivulet spread and swelled, 
A mighty stream, with creek and bay. 

** And here was love, and there was strife, 
And mirthful shouts, and wrathful cries, 

And strong men, struggling as for life, 
With knotted limbs and angry eyes. 

" Now stooped the sun — the shades grew thin; 

The rustling paths were piled with leaves ; 
And sun-burnt groups were gathering in. 

From the shorn field, its fruits and sheaves. 

" The river heaved with sullen sounds ; 

The chilly wind was sad with moans ; 
Black hearses passed, and burial-grounds 

Grew thick with monumental stones. 

" Still waned the day ; the wind that chased 

The jagged clouds blew chiller yet ; 
The woods were stripped, the fields were waste ; 

The wintry sun was near its set. 

" And of the young, and strong, and fair, 

A lonely remnant, gray and weak, 
Lingered, and shivered to the air 

Of that bleak shore and water bleak. 



228 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

*' Ah ! age is drear, and death is cold ! 

I turned to thee, for thou wert near. 
And saw thee withered, bowed, and old, 

And woke, all faint with sudden fear." 

'T was thus I heard the dreamer say, 
And bade her clear her clouded brow ; 

" For thou and I, since childhood\s day, 
Have walked in such a dream till now. 

" Watch we in calmness, as they rise, 
The changes of that rapid dream, 

And note its lessons, till our eyes 
Shall open in the morning beam." 



THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM. 

Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines. 
That stream with gray-green mosses ; here the 

ground 
Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring 

up 
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet 
To Hnger here, among the flitting birds. 
And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and 

winds 
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass, 
A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set 
With pale blue berries. In these peaceful 

shades — _ 



THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM. 229 

Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old — 

My thoughts go up the long dim path of years, 

Back to the earliest days of liberty. 

Oh Freedom ! thou art not, as poets dream, 
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, 
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap 
With which the Roman master crowned his slave 
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man. 
Armed to the teeth, art thou ; one mailed hand 
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword ; thy 

brow, 
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred 
With tokens of old wars ; thy massive limbs 
Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has 

launched 
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee ; 
They could not quench the life thou hast from 

heaven. 
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep, 
And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires. 
Have forged thy chain ; yet, while he deems thee 

bound, 
The links are shivered, and the prison walls 
Fall outward : terribly thou springest forth. 
As springs the flame above a burning pile, 
And shoutest to the nations, who return 
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. 

Thy birthright was not given by human hands : 
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant 
fields. 



230 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him, 
To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars, 
And teach the reed to utter simple airs. 
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood. 
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf. 
His only foes ; and thou with him didst draw 
The earliest furrows on the mountain side, 
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself. 
Thy enemy, although of reverend look. 
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed, 
Is later born than thou ; and as he meets 
The grave defiance of thine elder eye. 
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses. 

Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years. 
But he shall fade into a feebler age ; 
Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares, 
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap 
His withered hands, and from their ambush call 
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send 
Quaint maskers, forms of fair and gallant mien, 
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words 
To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth, 
Twine around thee threads of steel, light thread on 

thread. 
That grow to fetters ; or bind down thy arms 
With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh ! not yet 
May'st thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by 
Thy sword ; nor yet, O Freedom ! close thy lids 
In slumber ; for thine enemy never sleeps. 
And thou must watch and combat till the day 
Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou 



THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM. 231 

Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men, 
These old and friendly solitudes invite 
Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees 
Were young upon the un violated earth, 
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new, 
Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced. 



232 BRYANT'S POEMS. 



NOTES. 



Page I . — Poem of the Ages. 

In this poem, written and first printed in the year 1 821, 
the Author has endeavored, from a survey of the past ages 
of the world, and of the successive advances of mankind 
in knowledge, virtue, and happiness, to justify and con- 
firm the hopes of the philanthropist for the future des- 
tinies of the human race. 

Page 31. — The Prairies. 
The surface rolls and Jiuctuates to the eye. 
The prairies of the West with an undulating surface, 
rolling prairies, as they are called, present to the unaccus- 
tomed eye a singular spectacle when the shadows of the 
clouds are rapidly passing over them. The face of the 
ground seems to fluctuate and toss like the billows of 
the sea. 

Page 32. the prairie-hawk that, poised on high. 

Flaps his broad wings, yet fnoves not. 

I have seen the prairie-hawk balancing himself in the 
air for hours together,- apparently over the same spot ; 
probably watching his prey. 

Page 33. These ample fields 

Nourished their harvests. 

The size and extent of the mounds in the valley of the 
Mississippi, indicate the existence, at a remote period, of 



NOTES. 233 

a nation at once populous and laborious, and therefore 
probably supsisting by agriculture. 

Page 34. the rude conquerors 

Seated the captive with their chiefs. 
Instances are not wanting of generosity like this among 
the North American Indians toward a captive or survivor 
of a hostile tribe on which the greatest cruelties have been 
exercised. 

Page 64. — The Indian Girl's Lament. 

Her maiden veil, her own black hair, etc. 

*'The unmarried females have a modest falling down of 
the hair over the eyes." — Eliot. 

Page 67. — The Massacre at Scio. 

This poem, written about the time of the horrible butch- 
ery of the Sciotes by the Turks, in 1824, has been more 
fortunate than most poetical predictions. The independ- 
ence of the Greek nation, which it foretold, has come to 
pass, and the massacre, by inspiring a deeper detestation 
of their oppressors, did much to promote that event. 

Page 73. — Monument Mountain. 
The mountain called by this name is a remarkable preci- 
pice in Great Barrington, overlooking the rich and pictur- 
esque valley of the Housatonic, in the western part ol 
Massachusetts. At the southern extremity is, or was a few 
years since, a conical pile of small stones, erected, accord- 
ing to the tradition of the surrounding country, by th«s 
Indians, in memory of a woman of the Stockbridge tribe, 
who killed herself by leaping from the edge of the preci- 
pice. Until within a few years past, small parties of that 



234 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

tribe used to arrive from their settlement in the western 
part of the State of "New York, on visits to Stockbridge, 
the place of their nativity and former residence. A young 
woman belonging to one of these parties related to a friend 
of the author the story on which the poem of Monument 
Mountain is founded. An Indian girl had formed an 
attachment for her cousin, which, according to the cus- 
toms of the tribe, was unlawful. She was, in consequence, 
seized with a deep melancholy, and resolved to destroy her- 
self. In company with a female friend she repaired to the 
mountain, decked out for the occasion in all her orna- 
ments, and, after passing the day on its summit in singing 
with her companion the traditional songs of her nation, 
she threw herself headlong from the rock, and was killed. 

Page 78. — The Murdered Traveller. 

Some years since, in the month of May, the remains of 
a human body, partly devoured by wild animals, were 
found in a woody ravine, near a solitary road passing 
between the mountains west of the village of Stockbridge. 
It was supposed that the person came to his death by vio- 
lence, but no traces could be discovered of his murderers. 
It was only recollected that one evening in the course of 
the previous winter a traveller had stopped at an inn in the 
village of West Stockbridge ; that he had inquired the way 
to Stockbridge ; and that, in paying the innkeeper for 
something he had ordered, it appeared that he had a con- 
siderable sum of money in his possession. Two ill-looking 
men were present, and went out about the same time that 
the traveller proceeded on his journey. During the winter, 
also, two men of shabby appearance, but plentifully sup- 
plied with money, had lingered for awhile about the village 
of Stockbridge. Several years afterward, a criminal, about 



NOTES. -235 

to be executed for a capital offence in Canaaa, confessed 
that he had been concerned in murdering a traveller in 
Stockbridge for the sake of his money. Nothing was ever 
discovered respecting the name or residence of the person 
murdered. 

Page 81. — The African Chief. 
Chained in the market-place he stood^ etc. 

The story of the African Chief, related in this ballad, 
may be found in the African Repository for April, 1825. 
The subject of it vi^as a warrior of majestic stature, the 
brother of Yarradee, king of the Solima nation. He had 
been taken in battle, and was brought in chains for sale to 
the Rio Pongas, where he was exhibited in the market- 
place, his ankles still adorned with the massy rings of gold 
which he wore when captured. The refusal of his captor 
to listen to his offers of ransom drove him mad, and he 
died a maniac- 
Page 87. — The Hunter's Serenade. 
And stoops the slim papaya, etc. 

Papaya — papaw, custard-apple. Flint, in his excellent 
work on the Geography and History of the Western States, 
thus describes this tree and its fruit : 

"A papaw shrub hanging full of fruits, of a size and 
weight so disproportioned to the stem, aiid from under 
long and rich-looking leaves, of the same yellow with the 
ripened fruit, and of an African luxuriance of growth, is to 
us one of the richest spectacles that we have ever contem- 
plated in the array of the woods. The fruit contains from 
two to six seeds, like those of the tamarind, except that 
they are double the size. The pulp of the fruit resembles 



236 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

egg custard in consistence and appearance. It has the 
same creamy feeling in the mouth, and unites the taste of 
eggs, cream, sugar, and spice. It is a natural custard, too 
luscious for the relish of most people." 

Chateaubriand, in his Travels, speaks disparagingly of 
the fruit of the papaw; but on the authority of Mr. Flint, 
who must know more of the matter, I have ventured to 
make my western lover enumerate it among the delicacies 
of the wilderness. 

Page 89. — Song of Marion's Men. 

The exploits of General Francis Marion, the famous 
partisan warrior of South Carolina, form an interesting 
chapter in the annals of the American revolution. The 
British troops were so harassed by the irregular and suc- 
cessful warfare which he kept up at the head of a few 
daring followers, that they sent an officer to remonstrate 
with him for not coming into the open field and fighting 
*' like a gentleman and a Christian." 

Page 93. — Love and Folly. — (Fj-om La Fontaine.) 

This is rather an imitation than a translation of the 
poem of the graceful French fabulist. 

Page 94. — Fatima and Raduan. 

This and the following poems belong to that class of 
ancient Spanish ballads by unknown authors, called Ro- 
mances Moriscos — Moriscan romances or ballads. They 
were composed in the 14th century, some of them, proba- 
bly, by the Moors, who then lived intermingled with the 
Christians; and they relate the loves and achievements of 
the knights of Granada. 



NOTES. 237 

Page 96. — The Death of Aliatar. 

Say, Love — fo7' thou didst see her tears, etc. 

The stanza beginning with this line stands thus in the 
original : — 

Dilo tu, amor, si lo viste; 

i Mas ay ! que de lastimado 
Diste otro nudo a la venda, 

Para no ver lo que ha passado. 

I am sorry to find so poor a conceit deforming so spirited 
a composition as this old ballad, but I have preserved it in 
the version. It is one of those extravagances which after- 
ward became so common in Spanish poetry when Gongora 
introduced the estilo culto, as it was called. 

Page 99. — The Alcayde of Molina. 

These eyes shall not recall thee, etc. 

This is the very expression of the orignal. No te 
llamardn mis ojos, etc. The Spanish poets early adopted 
the practice of calling a lady by the name of the most ex- 
pressive feature of her countenance, her eyes. The lover 
styled his mistress "ojos bellos," beautiful eyes, "ojos 
serenos," serene eyes. Green eyes seem to have been 
anciently thought a great beauty in Spain, and there is a 
very pretty ballad by an absent lover, in which he addressed 
his lady by the title of "green eyes," supplicating that he 
may remain in her remembrance. 

; Ay ojuelos verdes ! 

i Ay los mis ojuelos ! 

I Ay, hagan los cielos 
Que de mi te acuerdes ! 



238 BR YANT 'S rOEMS. 



Page 105. — From the Spanish of Pedro de Cas- 
tro Y Anaya. 

Las Auroras de Diana, in which the original of these 
lines is contained, is, notwithstanding it was praised by 
Lope de Vega, one of the worst of the old Spanish ro- 
mances, being a tissue of riddles and affectations, with now 
and then a little poem of considerable beauty. 

Page no. — Love in the Age of Chivalry. 
This personification of the passion of Love, by Peyre 
Vidal, has been referred to as a proof of how little the 
Proven9al poets were indebted to the authors of Greece 
and Rome for the imagery of their poems. 

Page III. — The Love of God. — (From the Provencal 
of Bernard Rascas.) 

The original of these lines is thus given by John of Nos- 
tradamus, in his lives of the Troubadours, in a barbarous 
Frenchified orthography : — 

Touta kausa mortala una fes perira, 
Fors que I'amour de Dieu, que tousiours durara. 
Tous nostres cors vendran essuchs, coma fa I'eska, 
Lous Aubres leyssaran lour verdour tendra e fresca, 
Lous Ausselets del bosc perdran lour kant subtyeu, 
E non s'auzira plus lou Rossignol gentyeu. 
Lous Buols al Pastourgage, e las blankas fedettas 
Sent'ran lous agulhons de las mortals Sagettas, 
Lous crestas d'Arles fiers, Renards e Loups espars, 
Kabrols, Cervys, Chamous Senglars de toutes pars, 
Lous Ours hardys e forts, seran poudra, e Arena, 
Lou Daulphin en la Mar, lou Ton, e la Balena, 



NOTES. 239 

Monstres impetuous, Ryaumes, e Comtas, 

Lous Princes, e lous Reys, seran per mort domtas. 

E nota ben eysso kascun : la Terra granda, 

(Ou I'Escritura ment) lou fermament que branda, 

Prendra autra figura. Enfin tout perira, 

Fors que PAmour de Dieu, que touiour durara. 

Page 113. — The Hurricane. 
This poem is nearly a translation from one by Jose Maria 
de Herebia, a native of the Island of Cuba, who published 
at New York, six or seven years since, a volume of poems 
in the Spanish language. 

Page 130. — Sonnet — William Tell. 

Neither this, nor any of the other sonnets in this volume, 
with the exception of the one from the Portuguese, is 
framed according to the legitimate Italian model, which, 
in the author's opinion, possesses no peculiar beauty for 
an ear accustomed only to the metrical forms of our own 
language. The sonnets in this collection are rather poems 
in fourteen lines than sonnets. 

Page 140. — The Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus. 

This conjunction was said in the common calendars to 
have taken place on the 2d of August, 1826. This, I be- 
lieve, was an error, but the apparent approach of the 
planets was sufficiently near for poetical purposes. 

Page 167. — The Burial-Place. 

The first half of this fragment may seem to the reader 
borrowed from the essay on Rural Funerals in the 4th 
number of the Sketch Book. The lines were, however, 
written more than a year before that number appeared. 



2 40 BR YANT 'S POEMS. 

The poem, unfinished as it is, would not have been ad- 
mitted into this collection, had not the author been unwill- 
ing to lose what had the honor of resembling so beautiful 
a composition. 

Page 200. — The Child's Funeral. 
The incident on which this poem is founded, was related 
to the author while in Europe, in a letter from an English 
lady. A child died in the south of Italy, and when they 
went to bury it they found it revived and playing with the 
flowers which, after the manner of that country, had been 
brought to grace its funeral. 

Page 203. — The Fountain. 

the Jlotver 



Of Sanguinaria, from zvhose bridle stem 
The red drops fell like blood. 

The Sanguinaria Canadensis, or blood-root as it is 
commonly called, bears a delicate white flower of a musky 
scent, the stem of which breaks easily, and distils a juice 
of a bright red color. 

Page 210. — The Green Mountain Boys. 
This song refers to the expedition of the Vermonters, 
commanded by Ethan Allen, by whom the British fort of 
Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain was surprised and taken 
in May, 1775. 

Page 211. — The Death of Schiller. 

' T is said, zvhen Schiller'' s death drew nigh. 
The wish possessed his inighty mind. 

To wander forth wherever lie 

The homes and haujtts of human kind. 



NOTES. 241 

Shortly before the death of Schiller, he was seized with 
a strong desire to travel in foreign countries, as if his 
spirit had a presentiment of its approaching enlargement, 
and already longed to expatiate in a wider and more varied 
sphere of existence. 

Page 212. — Life. 

Where Isar^s clay-zvhite rivulets run 
Through the dark woods like frightened deer. 

Close to the city of Munich, in Bavaria, lies the spacious 
and beautiful pleasure ground called the English Garden, 
in which these lines were written, originally projected and 
laid out by our countryman. Count Rumford, under the 
auspices of one of the sovereigns of the country. Wind- 
ing walks of great extent pass through close thickets and 
groves interspersed with lawns; and streams diverted from 
the river Isar traverse the grounds swiftly in various direc- 
tions, the water of which, stained with the clay of the soil 
it has corroded in its descent from the upper country, is 
frequently of a turbid white color. 

Page 217. — The Old Man's Counsel. 
the shadbusk, white withjiowers. 



Brightened the glens. 

The small tree named by the botanist Aronia botyrapum, 
is called in some parts of our country, the shadbush, from 
the circumstance that it flowers about the time that the 
shad ascend the rivers in early Spring. Its delicate sprays, 
covered with white blossoms before the trees are yet in 
leaf, have a singularly beautiful appearance in the woods. 



242 BRYANT'S POEMS. 

Page 218. — " There hast thou^'^ said my friend, ^^ a Jit- 
ting type 
Of human life.'' 

I remember hearing an aged man in the country compare 
the slow movement of time in early life and its swift flight 
as it approaches old age, to the drumming of a partridge 
or ruffled grouse in the woods — the strokes falling slow 
and distinct at first, and following each other more and 
more rapidly, till they end at last in a whirring sound. 

Page 223. — An Evening Revery. — (^Frojn an unfin- 
ished poem. ^ 

This poem and that entitled the Fountain, with one or 
two others in blank verse, were intended by the author as 
portions of a larger poem, in which they may hereafter 
take their place. 

Page 225. — The Painted Cup. 

The fresh savannas of the Sangajnon 
Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass 
Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts 
Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire. 

The Painted Cup, Euchroma coccinea, or Bartsia cocci- 
nea, grows in great abundance in the hazel prairies of the 
Western States when its scarlet tufts make a brilliant ap- 
pearance in the midst of the verdure. The Sangamon is 
a beautiful river, tributary to the Illinois, bordered with 
rich prairies. 



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